Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am the third or fourth Member queuing up to speak about the Balkans. It is true to say that the Balkans are at present not in the public eye, that they are not hitting the headlines. Thank goodness, you might say, because it is usually only bad news there that makes the front pages. Nevertheless, there are far-reaching problems. Growth in the Balkans is too weak for them to catch up. They have high unemployment, low inward investment, and there are still open wounds from the armed conflicts that marked the end of the former Yugoslavia. The process of refugee return remains to be completed and the process of nation building is still incomplete and uncertain – we only have to think of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia or Bosnia and Herzegovina. Added to that, the area is characterised by international crime that is also spilling over into Western Europe. It is therefore the job of the Presidency and of the Thessaloniki Summit, the ‘Zagreb II Summit’, to make a clear offer to these countries, but also to spell out the conditions very clearly. We already have the Copenhagen Criteria, and there is no reason to bend the rules they stipulate. But we also need to help these countries carry out their economic reforms. It has already been mentioned that the CARDS programme alone is not enough. We need to move towards pre-accession instruments and pre-accession aid, just as we did with the other enlargement countries, and secondly –as has also already been mentioned by others in the ‘Balkans brigade’ – we need to build up the rule of law. There can be no avoiding that. This means that the refugee problem must be solved, and that respect for minorities must be clear in people's hearts and minds and not just laid down in the law. There needs to be consistent prosecution of all crimes, and in particular, it should go without saying, of crimes against humanity. And there must be cooperation with The Hague. Like my fellow Members, I regret the fact that the United States is giving ambiguous signals: on the one hand strong pressure for cooperation with The Hague and on the other hand equally strong pressure to sign Article 98 agreements in connection with the International Criminal Court. That is untenable for us, and I believe and hope that the European Union – both the Council and the Commission – will make it clear to these countries that such agreements run counter not only to the spirit of the Common Foreign and Security Policy but also to the acquis communautaire that we have created in that area. That is why I am hoping for three things from the Thessaloniki Summit. The first is to give these countries clear membership prospects, which is essential; the second is to extend the support instruments not only quantitatively but also qualitatively, as part of preparations for an accession strategy; and the third point is strict monitoring. I agree with those fellow Members who have said that this is not about being particularly benevolent. We need to be able to tell those countries exactly where there are still problems, but we also need to be able to tell them where progress has been made. I hope – and this, Mr Prodi, is a job for the Commission – that Europe will react swiftly to the application by Croatia, the first of these countries to apply for membership. In principle, we should be giving a positive reply, at least I hope that things are moving in that direction. But there are also still certain things that Croatia needs to address, of course. I therefore believe not only that the Thessaloniki Summit should be described as ‘Zagreb II’, it should also be a kind of pre-Copenhagen, that is to say a Copenhagen I, in that it gives clear signals. Something can also be done as regards visa policy; it can simply be made more flexible, without having to lift visa requirements at this stage. Mr President-in-Office, I hope you will take on board that although we in this House are watching these countries with an extremely strict and critical eye, we also share the belief that we should give them reasonable European prospects. If you do that in Thessaloniki, then you will be able to chalk up a great success. (Applause)

Political group: PSE