Mr President, we have heard here about the brutal and wide-scale repression of the freedom of the media in Serbia, and in fact Belgrade’s Radio B92 was closed down during the May part-session here in Strasbourg. Since then a whole series of repressive measures has been taken against the independent media and against the student movement OTPOR, whose leaders have been unlawfully persecuted, excluded from university and taken into custody. We are calling for their release and we are demanding freedom of the media, but we must of course do something practical. I welcome the fact that Mr Wiersma has taken on board something which I also wanted to see in this resolution, which is that we must we must support independent broadcasting stations in the territory surrounding Serbia just as much as we support the few remaining independent media still existing within Serbia itself. I come from Munich, and Munich has for decades been the home of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which have been a voice of freedom for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Following the fall of Communism, President Havel said that these stations, which now also broadcast from Prague, played a leading part in establishing freedom and the rule of law there. But it was up to the Americans to do that – Radio Free Europe was created at the time by the Americans. We in the European Union today have a chance to do the same for a small part of Europe as the Americans did for Central and Eastern Europe. I have in mind creating independent broadcasting stations in Hungary, Romania, Montenegro and Albania which will be an independent voice and a source of information for the Serbian people. We must make one thing crystal clear once and for all: our criticism has never been aimed at the people of Serbia, but against those in power who are abusing the name of the Serbian people for their own criminal ends. We must draw a distinction between the people and the regime, and we must support the people and we must give them information and an independent voice. We have some opportunities here. We must at the same time be very much aware that the issue of protecting minorities also affects Serbia. Not only do people frequently forget about the minorities in Vojvodina, but there is already a stream of refugees and expellees flowing into Kosovo from the border region of Serbia which has an Albanian population. The Albanians driven out of core Serbia scarcely get a mention in our media, yet they are significantly aggravating the situation in this region. We are, of course, also championing all the media and supporting all the minorities in Kosovo, and Mrs Pack has already pointed out that in practice there is not only tension between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, but there are also Serbs persecuting other Serbs because they are regarded as collaborators since they are willing to participate in the process of reconstructing Kosovo and reconciliation between the peoples of Kosovo. The issue of those held in prison is an important one, and I would like to add to what Olivier Dupuis said on this: there are many people in Serbia who have been carried off into custody, and about whose fate we know nothing. I would like to mention Ukshin Hoti, whose release we have repeatedly called for in this House: we do not know if he is alive at all or if he is being detained somewhere. We are calling for him to be released as a matter of urgency. His family hopes that he is alive and we must continue to draw attention to the fate of this famous civil rights campaigner, who for a time was the Foreign Minister of the democratic government in Kosovo. In this context I would like to make it very clear that it is crucial for us not just to point the finger of blame at others, but also to fulfil our own obligations. This region is, of course, marked by criminality, hatred and conflicts, but if we do not even send two-thirds of the police officers we have promised to the area, so that a whole shift is missing in this crisis region, and on top of that there is no night shift, and all this happens simply because we are not meeting our own obligations, then we can scarcely point the finger of blame at others. Instead we should now ensure that we build up this region’s police force and administration. Without an operational police force and at least the rudiments of the rule of law, there is no hope of peace in Kosovo between individuals and between ethnic groups. There is also the point that Olivier Dupuis made so clearly. There may be differences of opinion about ways and means, but we should be united on the essentials. We can no longer dodge the vital issue, which is the very future of Kosovo!

Political group: PPE-DE