Eduard Kukan (PPE). – Madam President, the year 2013 was a challenging year, and in our response to breaches of human rights across the world I reiterate that we must stick to our values and our principles.

This means that human rights must be at the core of our relations with third countries. Our policy must be visible, coherent and efficient, with particular focus on our accession region and immediate neighbours. We must support democratic development, rule of law and fair, free and competitive elections. These are the key prerequisites for functioning democracies that respect human rights, and we cannot compromise on them. We must insist on them in our enlargement process.