Monsieur le Président,
Mesdames et Messieurs,
Venir à un sommet du PPE, c’est un peu comme se rendre à une réunion de famille.
Une famille réunie par des valeurs communes et un idéal partagé.
Et cet idéal a un nom : L’Europe.
Nous ne parlons pas ici d’une notion géographique, encore moins d’une machine bureaucratique.
Nous parlons de l’Europe comme projet politique, comme idéal moral.
L’Union Europeenne – sans aucun doute la plus grande avancée du siècle dernier - traverse aujourd’hui une crise majeure.
Une crise qui dépasse la question cruciale de la dette et que l’on peut qualifier d’identitaire.
Face au pessimisme ambiant, face à la montée du scepticisme, la famille PPE sera – j’en suis intimement convaincu - le moteur de la grande refondation européenne.
Je suis venu ici – dans cette ville magnifique que je ne connaissais pas, dont l’atmosphère me fait beaucoup penser à la Géorgie, Monsieur le Maire - avec un message simple, un message d’espoir : non seulement le projet européen a un avenir, mais pour nous, voisins de l’Union, ce projet est l’avenir.
Si vous me permettez, je vais poursuivre en Anglais…
Ladies and gentlemen,
You all know that the Russian Federation occupies militarily 20% of our territory, in violation of the August 12th cease-fire agreement and of the international law.
You are all aware of the tragedy of the 500 000 My fellow citizens and we are a country of only 5 million people who were expelled from their home only because a former KGB officer in a far away capital decided that their home was not their home anymore – but a playground for his neo-soviet ambitions.
You are aware of that – and I want to express the gratitude of these very people and of the Georgian nation as a whole to the President Martens, for his strong words today and more generally for the support and the moral leadership the EPP has shown throughout these last years.
The latest proof of this being the European Parliament resolution on Georgia, supported by an overwhelming majority, that EPP has engineered and promoted.
So, despite the occupation, the ethnic cleansing, the embargos and the continuous threats, I came here to deliver a message of hope, to stress the fantastic power of attraction of the EU.
Georgia that has been occupied, Georgia that has been proclaimed dead several years ago right now is one of the best reform performers. We are the world’s number one economic reformer according to the World Bank in these five years period. Number one fighter against corruption according to the data of Transparency International based on five years period. We are the country that has the second most efficient and transparent bureaucracy in the world according to the Canadian Center of Law and Democracy after New Zealand. This is a country where poverty has decreased from 52 % to 17% and continues to decrease. And the country that has tremendous social gains in terms of advancing our conservative values. These are the gains we are bringing to the European Union.
The Union – Ladies and gentlemen - is projecting stability and progress in its surroundings, it is synonymous of peace, democracy, prosperity.
For the countries of the Eastern Partnership, there is no alternative to Europe.
Our paths might look different – Georgia might embrace quicker and more steadily the European political model than others - but at the end, there is no other solution than the European transformation of our societies, no other geopolitical choice than the European integration.
What would be the alternative, once again?
The Eurasian Union – as proposed by some nostalgic leaders in Moscow ?
The same kind of project was imposed on Georgia and many other nations almost one century ago.
It had another name, it was called Soviet Union then.
If the EU has potential Europe has always found the way. That’s what we learn from the rcent European history. Eurasian Union is still born no matter what is the declaration right now. And this is very important to understand. Because of the recent events, in a small occupied region of Georgia called South Ossetia. The Russian President went there for an official visit, they staged elections and they could not even control their staged elections. They campained for so called Presidential candidate and so called elections andit all lead to violance and ugly pictures.
If European Union is the future, Eurasian Union is the past.
And this why it will fail.
Recent events in occupied Tskhinvali or even in the centre of Moscow have shown to us that the methods and the language of the past simply do not work anymore.
I travel a lot to Post-Soviet countries and I can tell you: There is no way they will accept the new Soviet Union in any form, under any name or any pretext.
The present is sometimes chaotic but the future belongs to democracies, open societies, free markets.
In my region this democratic future has one name: Europe.
EPP is the natural home for these reformist forces that are building such a European future and EPP has to be the leading force in the neighbourhood policy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The principle « more for more » adopted by the Union is the right approach.
The EU should propose more cooperation and more integration to those who want it more and act accordingly.
Both in terms of economic and political transformations, Georgia wants to be a success story of the Neighbourhood Policy, a success story for the EU and for the EPP.
Thank you.