Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my problem with Mr Corbett is that he knows too much about the law and so he always plunges me into confusion. His surfeit of knowledge, though, means that his trains of thought travel by such circuitous routes that the actual message is lost. For the political message is that we want to give the candidates for accession a warm welcome without entangling them in bureaucratic minutiae! That, I believe, is what the message has to be. That is why we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, which is the lead committee on enlargement, have come up with other proposals, which are meant to be pragmatic and straightforward. Whatever we do – whether we prefer to elect the new Commission or think it even better that it should be appointed – there will still be a transitional period in which the new candidates will be entitled to cooperate with the present Commission in nominating Commissioners. Whether it be four weeks or four months, the principle remains the same and indissoluble. It is for this reason that I would simply say: let the Commissioners without portfolio come, as agreed, from 1 May onwards. Checks will be made on them as regards their competence, their financial independence and so on, and this will be done by a procedure that is not conducted in the committees, as they do not as yet have portfolios. The observers, who have been working with us for all of a year already, will simply become MEPs for four or eight weeks, as has always been our practice, and, with accessions, they have sometimes remained in that position even for a year, or for a year and a half. So what is the problem? I believe that the way to make headway here is to put this in simple terms. If the new Commission is to be in office by 1 November, then what is decisive is that Parliament's rights have to be secured. The appointment of the President of the Commission will follow the European elections so that these may have an influence on it, and so that we can have time to do what is necessary, by which I mean that the committees will be subjecting the candidates from the old and the new Member States to rigorous scrutiny to see if they are suited to the position. That, politically speaking, is what it is about, and that is what we have to take seriously, as is only right and proper. Let me make another, additional comment. I would like to express my gratitude to the Danish Presidency of the Council for having been able, while focussing their efforts on enlargement, to cooperate successfully with the Commission in guiding these enlargement negotiations to what is evidently a good result. The necessary compromises will have to be reached in a spirit of goodwill and will, of course – as Commissioner Verheugen so rightly said – have to be well-crafted, and I am sure that we will succeed in this. The discussion sparked off in connection with Turkey and the determination of a date has already demonstrated, in our sitting today, something that will be perpetuated in Copenhagen and subsequently in the media: no longer will anyone be rejoicing at our welcome for ten new countries; no longer will people be talking publicly about the accession of Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic; instead, Copenhagen will become a summit on Turkey, and Turkey will be our sole topic of discussion! I see it as inordinately regrettable that we have manoeuvred ourselves into this situation, a blackmail scenario in which we have ESDP and NATO, American pressure, Iraq and the Cyprus issue to cope with. I do not think it right that this situation should come about! If the European Council is led by considerations of political logic – sometimes known in other places as opportunism – to decide to set a date, then I fear that the citizens of our Member States will say: aha, they are serious about this! Ten new countries, that is difficult enough, and then, along come the Turks! The ensuing discussion will create difficulties for us when it comes to selling Polish and Slovene accession to our public, and I hope that the Council is aware of this responsibility and is not thinking too much in the short term.

Political group: PPE-DE