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Verbatim report of proceedings
Monday, 19 April 2004 - Strasbourg OJ edition

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
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  Alyssandrakis (GUE/NGL), in writing. (EL) The President of the European Parliament, in his interview in the Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros, appears to have commented on the Cypriot leaders by saying that he personally was disappointed by what he considered to be a failure in the fields of the imagination and courageous leadership which needed to be demonstrated at this time. He concluded by calling on the Cypriot people to seize the opportunity.

I consider it unacceptable and inadmissible that the President of the European Parliament, even at a personal level, should throw all his weight behind and add to the unbearable pressure, coercion and threats to which the Cypriot people are subject from the UN Secretary General and his entourage, from the US Government, from the European Commission and Council, from Turkey and from numerous others, including the political forces in Greece. His intervention is an insult and, if I may say so, is unseemly towards the political forces of Cyprus and the Cypriot people as a whole, who do not need lessons in good behaviour from the President of the European Parliament or anyone else.

In addition, his comments contradict what he says at the beginning of the interview about the choice of the communities of Cyprus in the two referenda being a choice by free and sovereign peoples. Do the President and others perhaps consider that the only free choice which the Cypriot people have in the referendum is to say 'yes'?

 
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