Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-303"
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"en.20000518.13.4-303"2
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"Mr President and honourable Members of Parliament, the Commission welcomes the opportunity of participating in this debate on how to develop our common efforts in the fight against trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation following the Commission’s second communication of December 1998. I take the opportunity of paying my respects to my predecessor, Mrs Gradin, who was the author of that communication. May I extend my congratulations to the honourable Member, Mrs Sörensen. Her report is a very valuable contribution towards continuing our work.
As the STOP Programme is now in its last financial year and has made a valuable contribution to the fight against trafficking at European level, the Commission will put forward a proposal for a renewal of the programme for another five-year period starting in 2001. The proposal will, of course, build on experience gained from the first programme. We also intend to offer the possibility of running multiannual projects which will improve the efficiency of the programmes.
A word also
needs to be said about implementation of the new DAPHNE Programme following the DAPHNE initiative adopted in 1997. Its scope, as you know, is to prevent and combat all forms of violence against women and children. This includes trafficking in women and the sexual exploitation of women. The programme will allow us, in addition to the STOP programme, to help victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation by providing a financial contribution of EUR 20 million in the period from 2000 to 2003. In addition, more focus has been given and needs to be given to developing our cooperation through specific projects with the candidate countries such as several Members have mentioned of Parliament. We share with these candidate countries a serious common problem, since there is a clear trend involving the Central and Eastern European countries as the most important region of origin of both victims of trafficking and perpetrators. The Commission has, therefore, opened DAPHNE to the candidate countries and will do the same under the STOP Programme.
Finally, the Commission has also mobilised other sources of financing to promote both support to local NGOs in the candidate countries and prevention campaigns in countries of origin. In the framework of the new Transatlantic Agenda and in cooperation with the government of the United States of America, it has, for instance, carried out various information campaigns in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Bulgaria, to raise an awareness within the population and the public bodies of these countries.
For the future we are exploring the possibility of new campaigns targeting new areas and new countries. This is an issue that has a relevant role to play in the Stability Pact for the Balkans.
Last but not least, I wish to clearly underline the importance of the Union being involved in wider forms of international cooperation. The Commission is now actively participating in the work on the draft United Nations protocol on trafficking to supplement the draft convention on trans-national organised crime and I sincerely hope that the members of the United Nations will be able to adopt this new convention in autumn this year.
In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to a point that we need to keep in mind when working against trafficking in women at European level. That point is that even though the European Union can, and must, play an active role against trafficking, the Member States have the prime responsibility. This means that we need to be careful when talking about measures such as automatic non-criminalisation of victims of trafficking, possibilities of NGOs bringing court action on behalf of the victims and investigative methods in criminal matters. In other words, we need to be clear about which objectives can be better achieved at European level taking into account the level of cross-border cooperation in place among the Member States.
Honourable Members have an opportunity of adapting what I consider a piece of good work that not only confirms a coherent and multidisciplinary European policy on trafficking but also adds new impetus for further actions which are undoubtedly necessary at European level.
I want to thank Mrs Sörensen for her knowledge, her expertise and her contribution to this common fight.
Before going into the more substantial parts of this subject, I would like to state that the Commission remains fully committed to keeping the fight against this degrading form of violation of human rights and human dignity high on the political agenda. We have proved that in the proposals that we put to the European Council of Tampere last October.
As several Members have already emphasised, preventive and repressive measures, as well as measures to support the victims, together with international cooperation, must be given further encouragement.
I noted that the resolution that you are going to vote on tomorrow and the report that we are discussing today contain a large number of requests to the Commission. I will therefore try to address a few of these key issues.
I wish first of all to address the matter of improving existing penal law in the Member States as regards the criminalisation of traffickers of human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. As a starting point in this exercise, we have here the February 1997 instrument, but it has become quite clear that it has its shortcomings. As I understand, during the hearing in August, the Commission will present at the end of this semester a package of proposals on trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children. We have, in my opinion, a firm basis for this in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Vienna Action Plan of 1998 and the conclusions of the European Council in Tampere. Therefore, we do not need to wait for any change in the Treaties: we have a clear legal basis to address this issue of making trafficking in women a criminal offence.
Mrs Van Lancker said the proposal is based on a Council framework decision which will look in particular at how to ensure that all Member States have common definitions, common criminal offences and common sanctions. In addition, we need to consider in the drafting exercise horizontal judicial issues such as defining the competent jurisdiction, the rules on extradition and seizure of the proceeds of crime.
One important aspect for the future is that when finally adopted, this proposal will form a part of the
. This means that the candidate countries will have to take it on board in the context of enlargement. Another important element closely related to improving efficiency in the conviction of traffickers is, as I have already mentioned to Parliament, granting temporary residence permits to victims of trafficking who are willing to give evidence. This was one of the Commission’s suggestions in its second communication. The package of proposals that I mentioned before will, therefore, be completed a bit later this year with a proposal for a directive that will cover the issue of temporary residence permits so as to ensure the protection of various victims of trafficking including the victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This element must, however, be seen as a crucial complement to the first set of initiatives. As a matter of fact, there is a real difficulty in convicting those who are responsible for trafficking.
Without the cooperation of the victims, we can never make sure that those who profit from this traffic are brought before a court and are duly convicted. It is extremely important to couple these two kinds of measures: criminalisation of trafficking and, at the same time, having a proactive policy on promoting the cooperation of the victims with the police and with the judiciary in convicting those who are responsible for such degrading activity.
Talking about significant developments in the field of trafficking in women at European level, we also need to take a look at the various activities that are, and have been, supported by the STOP programme. Previous and future projects under the STOP programme cover several points that are highlighted in Mrs Sörensen’s report. In particular, I would like to mention two of the priorities set for this year, namely, assistance to victims and prevention. In applying a multidisciplinary approach, this will involve NGOs as well as law enforcement services and I believe that it is necessary to promote closer dialogue between the NGOs that act in this area and the law enforcement authorities."@en1
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