Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-16-Speech-3-126"
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"en.20000216.8.3-126"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to make a few very brief comments on behalf of the Council presidency, and first to remind you that the work done by the presidency is above all about coordination and about seeking common positions on initiatives that the fifteen Member States are to approve in the Council. Our experience of previous sessions of the Human Rights Commission suggests – precisely by virtue of this coordinating role played by successive presidencies – that the European Union is very much able to uphold its status as a body with its own policy within the Commission, and it is important to maintain this.
I would also like to say that the European Parliament’s participation in the preparatory work is important in establishing coherent European Union positions on various different issues, and that the presidency therefore naturally welcomes all the various suggestions and in particular all the contributions made through the resolutions which have been presented. I would also like to stress, as many Members have highlighted, that human rights policy is at the heart of Europe’s identity and that respect for human rights should be seen as a fundamental principle for international cooperation by the European Union. Hence the need for the most coherent European human rights policy possible, which of course means that we need to adopt clear and unambiguous positions where we consider a state of affairs to be unacceptable, and I have in mind, in particular, the references that many Members have made to China. But we have also duly noted the concerns expressed by many other Members about other countries, notably Indonesia, East Timor, the Moluccas and Burma.
I could not conclude without mentioning Mr Van Hecke’s speech in particular, in which he referred to the human rights situation in Africa and to the role and priorities of the Portuguese Presidency, and questioned the sincerity of the priority we are giving to relations with the European Union. I would simply like to say that the Portuguese Presidency has, in these two short months, organised the first Development Council, admittedly an informal one, whose agenda was rightly dominated by EU-Africa relations. Indeed it was this subject which led the development ministers of the fifteen Member States to meet in Lisbon for discussions specifically on the new era these relations have entered. Furthermore, I cannot stress enough the significance of our having concluded important negotiations on the new convention to succeed the Lomé Convention, and the fact that, following extremely complex and difficult negotiations, we have succeeded in organising – or making preparations for the organisation of – the first EU-Africa Summit. For all these reasons I thought it essential to reply directly to Mr Van Hecke’s question on this issue."@en1
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