Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-07-Speech-4-135"
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"en.20000907.5.4-135"2
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"Mr President, our prayers and sympathy go to the 118 sailors and their families. They deserve our solidarity. But it must also be considered that we have a major concern in connection with the Kursk disaster, namely the situation in Russia. We need to be quite clear that President Putin and the Russian authorities covered up a lot of the circumstances surrounding this accident. Facts were suppressed, falsified or hushed up. But in one interview he spoke the truth when he said that the Kursk accident was symptomatic of Russia's condition as a whole. This is a situation that we finally have to face up to. We have to see the reality for what it is. This is not just about nuclear safety and the nuclear submarine fleet, it is also about a mass of highly developed arms technologies for which there are no appropriate control and safety measures.
That is why it is of the utmost importance that we should do everything to ensure transparency finally reaches Russia. It is only because of Mr Nikitin, and the independent media, which face increased repression, that we heard about the disaster at all, four days after the event.
Thanks to international support, it was at least possible to avoid the very worst and I hope that it will also be possible to find a solution. But that is not a satisfactory state of affairs. That is why they need not only our help, but also frank talking. What is called for is some plain speaking and an offer of cooperation that does not just mean reaching for our cheque book, but also includes developing the rule of law, democratic processes and independent media in Russia. The most important point is to educate and support all democratic forces, all the independent media, the administration, the judiciary, and young politicians, especially those in local government, so that Russia becomes a partner with whom we can safely live together in Eurasia.
I do not want to go into other issues such as Chechnya and a host of others at this point. Kursk by itself is symptomatic of how disasters in Russia can have a direct environmental and political impact on our part of Europe. That is why it is very much in our interest to make sure that Russia gradually becomes a democratic state where the rule of law prevails. What we are witnessing at present under President Putin is instead a retrograde trend which is a matter of great concern to us. So we have an enormous responsibility here."@en1
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