Debate at the plenary session of the European Parliament, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 - Brussels

14. The future of Kosovo and the role of the EU (debate)

Tobias Pflüger, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group . – (DE) Madam President, the great majority of our group will be voting against this report. This is mainly because of the report’s negligence with regard to international law – which is shared by the Ahtisaari report itself. Mr Ahtisaari has proposed that the EU develop a kind of successor to UNMIK, which means that UNMIK would be continued by other means, among them the so-called Kosovo Trust Agency, which has mainly carried out privatisation in Kosovo, causing problems locally.

We should like to spell out that Parliament’s position on this is one-sided and apt to escalate conflict. We wish to draw attention once more to paragraph 3 of the report adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and I quote: ‘Considers that any settlement regarding the future status of Kosovo must be in accordance with international law’. I hope that this clause remains in the report. I have heard that there are already initial amendments seeking to remove it. We all know that one of the causes of the present state of affairs in Kosovo is NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia back then, and I keep asking – I have already asked the Commissioner – what the EU intends to do if Serbia and Russia, in particular, continue to say ‘no’? I have yet to receive an answer to this, which means that the intention is really to act contrary to the will of these two countries. The great majority of my group wants no part in this, and hence we shall be voting against this report.