Mr President, I shall begin by offering my apologies to the Finnish Presidency. I too intend to speak mainly on Kosovo and the Balkans, but I suspect that the Finnish Presidency will, of course, be preoccupied with much weightier matters over the year to come. One of the most important tasks facing the Finnish Presidency is the future of Kosovo. We must now look forwards. It is the European Union's move, now that we are talking about the reconstruction of that part of former Yugoslavia. That must be brought about swiftly and efficiently, working in close co-operation with the United Nations and the OSCE. A great deal went wrong in Bosnia. We must learn from that. Our own initiatives must not be fragmented. Activities in Kosovo must be directed from Pristina. This responsibility cannot be shared with another office in Thessaloniki. We feel that it would be better, as has also been proposed here, for the administration of the Stability Pact for the entire Balkans region to be located in Thessaloniki..The EU will have to be generous in financial terms, but not at the expense of other aid programmes and certainly not at the expense of aid programmes for the poorest countries or for the debt restructuring of those poor countries. We cannot go along with that. Can the Commission confirm that it shares this view? Can the Council confirm that a number of Member States also took this view as their starting point during consultation with the Council, and that there are several Member States which share the Parliament's view that this funding must not be at the expense of other important aid programmes? The Union will have to find additional means from other sources in order to finance the Balkans ambitions it is rightly pursuing. The fact is that Kosovo has become a protectorate. It could not be any other way. But I hope that the UN will implement this in such a way that the Kosovars themselves play the leading part in the reconstruction process. The international administration continues to have to step in in Bosnia and has to do so too often, which is no way to bring about democracy. An agreement has been reached on Kosovo which must be worked out in further detail. To this end, it is of great importance that safety in this region of former Yugoslavia is guaranteed. We attach great importance to achieving demilitarisation as rapidly as possible. We hope that all parties will work together to achieve this. In discussing the future of Kosovo we are of the opinion as a group that if there is any question of borders being redefined, then this will only be permitted in accordance with the Helsinki principles, by peaceful, political means. A great deal has already been said about the situation in Serbia. I support all those who maintain, on the one hand, that Milosevic should be sent to The Hague as soon as possible and who, on the other, ask for support for the democratic opposition in Serbia. I wholeheartedly endorse the proposal made by my colleague, Mr Cohn-Bendit, to set up an organisation uniting all political movements in order to help the opposition there. We shall continue our discussions on the Stability Pact later, the Stability Pact for the entire region. I should like to make two comments which I believe will be of importance to the Finnish Presidency when it takes up the drafting and preparation of the Stability Pact. The location of the office is an important matter but the principles on which we are basing our work are far more important still. First and foremost, it appears to me to be of great importance that the countries in the region should themselves be given a major part to play in the implementation and development of the pact and that it should not be imposed from Brussels or other European capital cities. Secondly, we must also enter into honest and open debate with those countries clarifying what we mean when we say that the region must be integrated into the European Union as quickly as possible. That will not be a simple task. We must discuss this honestly with those countries. If we fail to do this then it will create new frustrations, and there is already frustration enough in the region.

Political group: PSE