STATEMENT OF BODO HOMBACH IN BRUSSELS ON 27 JULY 2000, TO MARK THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE STABILITY PACT SUMMIT IN SARAJEVO Our aim is to make the Balkans a beacon of hope for all Europe. We need to pursue our common and comprehensive strategy among the EU, together with the G8, to achieve that. One year ago on 30 July 1999, the Stability Pact Summit in Sarajevo gave the Balkans the hope of a better future. The countries of the EU and G8, the countries of south eastern Europe, neighbours, and international institutions, committed themselves to an ambitious set of goals, aimed at peace stability and prosperity in the region. I am grateful for the strong support given by the Heads of State and Government present at Sarajevo. Now we need to pursue our common and comprehensive strategy among the EU, together with the G8, to achieve the vision and the goals which have been set. Many important steps in the right direction have already been taken. 2.4 billion Euro has been provided for a Quick Start Package of over 200 projects, for a period up to April next year, in which we are improving infrastructure, strengthening democratic institutions, and enhancing co-operation on crime-fighting and defence. The Quick Start Package is well underway, with projects coming on stream – tendering, building work etc – month by month.Wide ranging agreements on promoting inward investment, protecting the freedom of the media, and fighting corruption, have been agreed and are in the process of implementation. The international banks have agreed strategies – adopted by all Pact participants - for regional economic development, helping small and medium sized enterprises, and building up infrastructure. The EU is discussing proposals for giving access to EU markets for goods from south eastern Europe. After establishing the Szeged Process in October 1999, we have used the new framework to provide substantial, direct help to the democratic opposition and independent media in Serbia. We have helped Montenegro to maintain its moderate and pro-European path. And regional co-operation is flourishing, with successes like the Charter on Good Neighbourly Relations, the Romania - Bulgaria agreement on the new Danube bridge, the International Peace Force in Plovdiv, reconciliation and co-operation between the governments in Croatia and Montenegro, and many other examples.It has been a successful year. But looking backwards is not the way I started this job, and it is not the way I intend to pursue it in the future. For the year ahead, I see four main objectives, which should fit integrally into the common strategy. First, the full and timely implementation of all the projects and programmes agreed so far, so that the next steps can then be taken: promises must be kept, including those on democratic, economic and defence reforms by the countries of the region. Second, attracting private investment and capital to the region: government money can only ever be the start, the crucial requirement is to ensure that the economic potential of the countries in south eastern Europe can develop and flourish. Third, intensive efforts to improve the effectiveness of international institutions in dealing with the problems we face: we have to continue our fight against slowness and bureaucracy. Fourth, setting the region on the path of fully benefiting from the information technology revolution. The future of south eastern Europe lies in its full integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. That includes the rapidly developing economic structures based on electronic commerce and the use of information technology. The region has the opportunity to leapfrog a generation. By putting it at the forefront of modern technology, we will propel south eastern Europe into the 21st century. In the autumn we intend to put in place an initiative, with the help of the IT industry, to align the Balkan region with electronic economic activity in Europe. In November, the European Union will hold a Summit in Zagreb together with countries of south eastern Europe. This must be a success. I fully support the French Presidency in its efforts to ensure that. Against that background, it will be essential that the EU does everything possible ahead of the Summit to ensure that it can present a fully functioning new regulation for EU aid to Balkans (the "CARDS" regulation), and an agreed and generous policy of opening markets to goods from the region (asymmetric trade liberalisation). Strong EU involvement in helping the region on crime-fighting measures should also be an important theme. And in order for the EU to play its proper and expected role it must have the financial resources to do so. Our aim is to make the Balkans a beacon of hope for all Europe. With the unacceptable regime in Milosevic's Yugoslavia at its heart, the region has a difficult future still ahead of it. The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe offers Yugoslavia the prospect of integration into the European mainstream, if it respects the fundamental standards of international and domestic behaviour to which the Pact would commit it. This is an offer which I believe the people of Yugoslavia will accept, and in doing so they will remove and replace a corrupt and monstrous regime in Belgrade. The rest of the region has already chosen a positive and successful path: day by day, the Pact is building the new, wider Europe.