Debate on the situation in Kosovo û Speech by Olivier Dupuis

Strasbourg, Tuesday 4 May 1999

Dupuis (ARE). Honourable President, Honourable President of the Council, it is my opinion that things have gone badly wrong: what is lacking is a fully-fledged political assault on the Yugoslav regime û nothing is happening on this front.

As our Parliament requested, I believe that we should first of all begin to bombard the Serbian population with information, with radio and TV programmes, so that they can finally begin to understand the true nature of the Belgrade regime.

The second point û which our Parliament finally approved in the last session -ûis the indictment of Milosevic. We must begin to explain to Mrs Harbour (and this is the duty of the Council) that if Hitler had not been charged because it would have been impossible to prove that he was the head of this or that concentration camp, because it would have been impossible to prove the chain of command between Berlin and Auschwitz, I believe that this would have been considered absolutely unacceptable by all parties.

Now, despite the presence of a million deportees, we are unable to find a reason to indict Milosevic. This is absolutely disgraceful. I believe that the Council, the Commission, our Parliament must exert greater pressure on Mrs Harbour, who has stated that she might chair the Canadian Supreme Court in June. I believe that this is absolutely unacceptable.

The third point involves the physical safety of Mr Milosevic. This is a problem we must deal with immediately. We cannot wait until he is dead before we begin to discuss what should have been done.

We must be able to understand what support Milosevic has been able to rely on over all these years, we must be able to understand who his accomplices are in the United States and Europe; which people have been supporting him for the last ten years, allowing him to carry out his despicable, criminal policies in Bosnia, Croatia, and now Kosovo. We must formulate the charges against him, and then apply great pressure on Mrs Harbour so that she finally explains what she intends to do in the coming days; the information campaign and the integration of the country - something, Mr Fischer, that we have been demanding for over twenty years: as you will remember, in 1981 Marco Pannella asked this Parliament to allow Yugoslavia to join the European Union. Now we must make up the ground we have lost and allow all the countries to join the European Union, immediately: with ad hoc procedures, but immediately.