Hr. formand, vi har netop haft en særdeles interessant diskussion i Kommissionen hvor den røde tråd i de fleste bidrag - det mest gennemtrængende argument hos de fleste talere - var, at det er helt afgørende, at vi giver spørgsmålet om forholdet til vores naboer den samme prioritet, som vi tidligere har givet hele udvidelsesprocessen. Det vil med andre ord sige, at det bliver alles ansvar at fremme begrebet om en institutionaliseret kreds af venner, som vi kan tilbyde en form for deltagelse i vores sikkerhed, stabilitet og velstand.
Mr President, we have just had an extremely interesting discussion in the Commission in which the leitmotif of most of the contributions - the strongly-held argument of most of those who spoke - was that it was absolutely imperative that we give the question of the relationship with our new neighbours the priority which in the past we have given the whole process of enlargement; that, in other words, it becomes part of everybody's responsibility to promote the concept of an institutionalised ring of friends to whom we can offer ways of sharing in our security, stability and prosperity.