Mr President, firstly I would like to take the floor to respond to the verbal attack that Mr Dupuis has just made on me, and this should not be deducted from my allotted speaking time. That was a personal declaration, Mr President, and I would like to add that my Group has asserted in a unanimous decision that under no circumstances do we wish to join forces with those who intend to sit with Mr Le Pen and the other right-wing extremists in this Parliament, in a compromise resolution or any other form of cooperation. We will not support a joint resolution; we will not conduct negotiations with them and we will not recognise their signatures on a resolution of this kind. That is what I wanted to say about the incident that Mr Dupuis spoke of. Together with NATO, EU Member States waged a war for the sake of Kosovo. They declared that this war was needed to uphold human rights. I do not propose, at this point, to start yet another discussion on the effectiveness of the methods at our disposal for dealing with crises. My fellow delegates are well acquainted with my scepticism as to the legitimacy of military intervention and the effectiveness thereof. I accept that NATO and the individual Member States were in favour of getting involved in an operation of this kind, and that they believed that this was the only option remaining to them to put an end to the ever-increasing violations of human rights and crimes perpetrated by the Milosevic regime in Kosovo, and secure a dignified existence for the Albanian people. Intervention did not succeed in preventing a human catastrophe; Kosovo is destroyed, fields cannot be cultivated, production centres are out of action and the economy is in a chaotic state. Serbia’s development has been set back decades and the people – Serbians and Kosovo Albanians alike – will be traumatised for a long time to come. But the violations of human rights go further, and supporters of the Milosevic regime were not the only ones to trample human rights underfoot; sadly, those whom NATO set out to defend are guilty of the same. Disputes have been going on for months. Hundreds of Serbs had to leave Kosovo and we have just heard that KFOR soldiers are now coming under attack as well, along with refugee buses and the like in the vicinity of Mitrovica. This is only a fraction of the ongoing acts of aggression against Serbs, Roma and other minorities, which are not just taking place in Mitrovica alone. Our commitment to Kosovo obliges us not to look away now either, when there are new violations of human rights, irrespective of who initiates them. Otherwise, we will lose all credibility. This throws up another fundamental question: how effective are international protectorates? Can a protectorate be a panacea, or is it not more likely to entrench the ethnic divide within the protected province? Is it at all realistic to undertake to build a multicultural society in a protectorate following military intervention? I believe we must ask ourselves these questions or else we will not be able to find a solution for Kosovo. And I would like, very briefly, to make some specific and practical proposals that will enable us to arrive at this solution. The national governments must despatch the required international police force to Kosovo with all haste, i.e. immediately. The donor states must release the promised financial aid so that the international representatives actually have the means at their disposal for fulfilling their tasks. The KPC, the Kosovo Protection Corps, must be investigated following suspicions that some members are involved in criminal activity, and appropriate steps must be taken. Finally, there is the demand that this Parliament made in the case of the last resolution: the representative of the UNO Secretary-General must build an administration there that will truly work in Kosovo’s interests. (Applause)

Political group: PSE