Mr President, the Commission announced yesterday 100 projects under our European Democracy Initiative - in which you, Mr President, and I have been active. This we rejoice in because right across Central and Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union democracy now is very much the order of the day.

But in other parts of the world, such as Nigeria, democracy is a very fragile flower. I rise on behalf of the people of Nigeria who wish that the President they elected on 12 June, Chief Moshood Abiola, be released from prison; that the trial against him on charges of treason be suspended; that his full civil rights be restored to him and that he should take his proper place as President of Nigeria.

I say this because on 1 October, Nigeria's National Day - that is this Saturday - we should not be celebrating with Nigeria the current military regime, but the opportunity that democracy represents for that country.

So I hope that the European Union will send a troika of ambassadors to visit Chief Moshood Abiola in prison and express their disgust to the military regime at the suppression of democracy and the imprisonment of the rightful president of that country.