Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-04-Speech-3-326"
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"en.20001004.12.3-326"2
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"Mr President, I do not know whether to laugh or to recoil in horror at this report. If it were adopted, it would show up the European Parliament for what it is and for what it is good for. We have a situation in which the sale and manufacture of arms constitute a massive waste for humanity, a situation in which the market for this highly individual trade consists of present, future and potential wars of a kind which tear the world apart, and in which arms expenditure and local wars are an exacerbating factor in the underdevelopment of a large part of the planet, and yet the European Parliament proposes to regulate, and lend moral legitimacy to, a trade that has no use for ethical codes and regulations.
The report even has the temerity to present arms exports as a means of preventing conflicts, combating poverty and promoting human rights. The weapon used to target and kill a Palestinian child in cold blood is no doubt a product of the duly regulated, ethical arms trade, as no doubt were the bombs dropped upon the former Yugoslavia and the fragmentation mines left in Africa. Given that armaments are the flagship product of international trade and a huge source of profit for a number of large industrial groups which like to think they are respectable, the only role left to the European Parliament is that of attaching the fig leaf of hypocrisy to the traffic in arms and the loathsome state of affairs which enables it to thrive."@en1
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