Mr President, first of all I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Mr Lagendijk for his report. I can give it my full support, and I am delighted that a Christian Democrat can fully support a green report, because that would suggest we are going down the right track together and have shared the same experiences. This debate is taking place at an opportune moment today, as has already been mentioned. The donor conference had a positive outcome, at least on paper. Money is to be poured into projects that will at last be able to give the pact a face. It has been something of a mirage so far: the outcome was intangible. Work is now to begin at last, and the costly palaver is over. It is in fact a shame that the coordinator’s apprenticeship had to last so long. Experts on the region have long been familiar with the projects to be undertaken there, which have now been defined by the European Union and the European Investment Bank. We could have, and in fact should have, made a start on them in the autumn. However, I would also like to take the decisions reached by the Council of Ministers to task at this point, and say that establishing a reconstruction agency in Thessaloniki and a coordinator in Brussels, and then not allowing the two to cooperate, shows what little inclination there is to promote efficiency. There can be no stability without reconstruction, and vice versa. We must now swiftly regain lost ground. EUR 1.8 billion for the next twelve months can be used to set one or two things in train, so that the people in the region are at last able to see that we are serious when we make our grandiose statements about securing stability in the region. But this will not be possible without reconstruction and functioning institutions, and we need to work quickly to achieve both. Every euro that actually goes towards the projects and does not get caught up in the imbroglio of excessive activities and organisations, or even disappear on account of corruption, will be a euro well spent. We must be on our guard here. However, the wars in the region were more expensive in every respect than all the necessary measures will prove to be. The idea of having a Stability Pact is a sound one because it is geared primarily towards cross-border measures, and thus to prevention of conflicts. Many local politicians and governments have grasped this and have already created a cross-border, regular working level. In implementing this instrument with rigour the European Union will be able to establish a successful and exemplary policy. However, all parties involved in the Stability Pact will need a great deal of stamina. It takes time and continuity to establish and consolidate stability. The recipient countries face the particular challenge of reforming their administration and their institutions, so as to create the right conditions for foreign investment and to enable them to become ever less dependent on external aid. However, stability in the region depends to a large extent in most spheres on the eradication of criminal power structures and the construction of structures befitting a state under the rule of law, as is the case in Bosnia for example. Elections are no panacea. One cannot vote democracy into being. Take last Sunday’s elections in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia. The parties of Karadzic and Kraijnik gained the most support. The return of the refugees is precisely what is needed to help restore normality and democracy, and that is why the refugee merry-go-round of Bosnia and Croatia, for example, must be set in motion without delay within the context of the Stability Pact. This will cost money. Mine clearance, job creation, schools and preventive health care must go hand in hand with repatriation. Unfortunately, the High Representatives in Bosnia have also wasted a great deal of time. They have tolerated, or even promoted, parallel structures for too long. We have not made nearly as much progress as we could have done when it comes to bridging the ethnic divide, which was created by the war, and, I am sorry to say, perpetuated by Dayton to some extent. Efforts to initiate and undertake judicial reform, in Bosnia for example, are in a state of disarray. The court judgements are not even being implemented. Instead of maintaining a protectorate for decades, more commitment should be given to establishing the nation state of Bosnia Herzegovina. Turning once again to the idea of a Stability Pact: as with European unification, the key is to motivate social groupings and their various interests, as well as States, to work towards a common goal. If we are to stabilise South-Eastern Europe, then the institutions concerned with the economy, culture, and educational policy that are either present or to be created in the respective States, must be encouraged to cooperate ever more closely with each other and with their European counterparts. We must now seize the opportunity and quickly create examples that will show the Serbs in Yugoslavia that it would be better if they were to rid themselves of the dictator Milosevic and then tread the path to Europe along with their neighbours.

Political group: PPE-DE