Mr President, we passed the budget yesterday and the steps that you decided ought to be taken in Category 4 will be very important in terms of Europe’s future. Commissioner, we are today discussing a form of special aid that will serve, in essence, to promote the stabilisation of a part of the world which could cause problems for us too, if we fail to get involved there. It is our duty to ensure that in Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia, greater store is set by democracy, the market economy and security issues in future. There was severe hyperinflation in Tajikistan during the civil war and the country’s production output was down by two-thirds. One can only imagine what kind of impact this has on family units and individuals living in such a country. In 1997 there was economic growth again of an unprecedented 1.7%. National economic growth of production output was 5.3%; the starting point being a very low base level of course, as I have already mentioned. In December 1998 inflation fell to below 3%, i.e. it was possible to detect a degree of stabilisation here as well, and in the 1998 financial year the balance of payments including invisible trade rose from 5.5 to at least 15.2% of Gross Domestic Product. The fact that the country has outstanding debts totalling USD 1,263 million, that is to say, 98% of GDP, is, of course, a major problem; it is clear that the situation has been pushed to the limit. Since Tajikistan is the poorest country amongst the Newly Independent States, it is up to us to combat the poverty in which the children and family units live there, and particularly in the run-up to Christmas, it behoves those of us that live in comfort to think of those that do not enjoy the standard of living that we do today. I therefore believe that we need to have clearly defined programmes which have certain conditions attached, and of course that usage of these programmes must be founded on existing legal bases. What we are most concerned about here is ensuring that the budgetary control stipulations are adhered to. Of course, we must also realise that the grants that are provided must be made conditional on orderly elections taking place. Elections are prospectively set for March 2000 and what we are concerned about is giving Tajikistan the incentive to push democracy through. It is important from the point of view of the people for disputes not to be dealt with on the streets or in a civil war but in the parliaments between the different groups playing by the same rules. I believe that Europe could serve as a very useful model for all the regions in question, with a view to achieving a functioning market economy, that is to say a socio-economic market economy, establishing democratic conditions and seeing to it that the citizen can rest assured that conflicts will be dealt with in the parliaments and that there will be security, and I believe that we need to export our concept of security rather than import crime from these countries. Whilst we might well feel ourselves to be secure here in this Parliament, in fact four women were murdered a few days ago in the vicinity of Strasbourg. So even if we suppose ourselves to be secure, we should still not let a single day pass without ensuring people’s security in their daily lives, both in Europe and in countries such as Armenia and Georgia. I would therefore like to conclude by extending my sincere thanks to all my fellow MEPs and also people that I work alongside, because it is quite evident that we are more than willing to take on responsibilities outside Europe and that we worry about peace in this world. That is why I was particularly delighted that we were able to hand our President the Bethlehem light of peace yesterday. I hope that peace will be with us over the Christmas period and that we also have before us the prospect of living in peace in the new millennium.

Political group: PPE-DE