Pressrelease from the liberal group in the European Parliament Strasbourg 2006-03-15
Enlargement: The prospect of EU membership encourages democracy
The European Parliament is set to adopt its report on the Commission's 2005 enlargement strategy paper. It calls on the EU to take its absorption capacity fully into account prior to future accessions. Liberals and Democrats warned against closing the door to candidate countries on the basis of that criteria.
"I don't view the absorption capacity of the Union as a geographic one. If there is indeed a problem for the Union to absorb new countries, it's because our institutions need to be reformed", said ALDE Foreign Affairs coordinator Annemie NEYTS (VLD, Belgium) during the debate held today. "The borders of the European Union are first and foremost political. It is most important that the EU follows up on its promise of membership, notably in the Western Balkans", she added.
"Enlargement is the greatest success of the European Union. The prospect for EU membership is the Union's soft power. It plays an important role in stimulating Turkey's reforms, for example. In the case of Ukraine, this Parliament supported the Orange revolution and left open the prospect for membership to keep the democratic forces alive. If we fix the European Union's borders today, we will prematurely limit the spreading of democracy", said Cecilia MALMSTROM (Folkpartiet, Sweden).
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