Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20001212.8.2-155"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should pay tribute to Mr Oostlander for having stressed the importance of the role of the Commission and, in particular, of Mr Patten as the Commissioner responsible for external relations, in the implementation of this common strategy. Contrary to what previous speakers have said, I do not believe that this strategy has been successful to date. Unfortunately, the major financial scandals which continue to punctuate relations between Russia and international finance, and a number of projects involving the international community, clearly illustrate as much.
I cannot really agree with Mr Oostlander’s approach to the issue of human rights and democracy in the context of the Russian Federation. I have put forward a number of amendments intended to place rather more emphasis on these issues. Mr Oostlander does not customarily welcome my amendments and I was not therefore very surprised to see that they had not been included.
Regarding Chechnya, in particular, I do not think it is possible to say, Mr Oostlander, that the solution cannot be purely military. I think that the solution cannot be military, as the situation clearly demonstrates, and that it can only be political. Mr Putin himself – and we would not even be going as far as him – said that the issue of the future status of Chechnya is not the main issue. Yet we do not dare say as much in our report. This, I believe, is not acceptable. Nor do I think it acceptable, moreover, to fail to state that it is absolutely intolerable, after one and a half years of war in Chechnya, that our Commissioner for humanitarian aid, Mr Nielson, has not yet truly set foot in Chechnya. Nor do I think it acceptable that the European Union should fail to respond to the murders of journalists covering the war in Chechnya. These are not isolated instances but repeated occurrences. A member of my party, a radical militant journalist, was murdered several weeks ago in Tbilisi, a city clearly under the control of
Russian troops. I do not feel the Commission and the Council can fail to respond to an event of such seriousness.
Mr Van Orden is quite right in what he says regarding the Caucasus. We are currently witnesses to an absolutely dreadful deterioration of the situation in Georgia. The country is completely destabilised, literally strangled by the Russian Federation. It is on the point of collapse and the European Union is offering no practical response to this rejection, this ban by the Russian authorities regarding the introduction of visas. It could respond by cancelling visas for Georgians travelling to the European Union. It could and should start to consider Georgia’s accession before it is too late, before there is another Balkans situation at the very gateway to Europe."@en1
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