madam president today's debate and resolution gives the new european parliament the opportunity to recommit itself to the further enlargement of the european union to note the positive developments that there are in the candidate countries in almost every individual case and to remind ourselves that freeing up trade buttressing stability improving control of our borders and expanding the opportunities for travel and free exchange for our peoples strengthen not weaken our european union
the european conservatives repeat today that they say they favour enlargement but at the same time exclude it from the founding document of their new group whose official spokesperson speaking in this debate repeats his opposition to turkey thus putting them in exactly the same camp as the far right as we have all heard this afternoon
however i do express my warm thanks to commission olli rehn whose good humour was reflected by his recent comment that in future the directorate-general for enlargement should not be an equal distance from either the council or the commission in the middle of rue de la loi
i appreciate his good humour and i appreciate his good judgement
i hope his legacy will be the accession of all current eu candidate countries
