Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-17-Speech-3-165"
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"en.20010117.5.3-165"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the European Commission, I am very pleased that, at an early stage in the Swedish Presidency, the opportunity has already been provided to debate this important issue concerning the preparations for the forthcoming meeting with the UN Human Rights Commission. In the course of the debate, I shall, of course, follow carefully the points of view put forward and interpret the mood of the Assembly before the continued discussion to establish the EU’s position.
The presidency’s objective in the run-up to this year’s session is to unite the EU behind agreed positions, to encourage the applicant countries to back the EU’s statements and resolutions and, as far as at all possible, to muster general support for the proposals – especially, this year, regarding the situations in Iran and Chechnya. For understandable reasons, it is still unclear quite how the Human Rights Commission’s special session on the situation in the Middle East, held last autumn, is to be followed up. What is, however, clear is that the issue may be expected to become one of the dominant issues during this year’s session and that the EU will be one of the central players.
In March of last year, the Council requested an assessment of the EU’s human rights dialogue with China. The conclusions are expected to be adopted at the Council’s meeting at the end of January. These will define the objectives of the dialogue and specify the forms to be taken both by the dialogue itself and by the regular assessments of the outcome of the dialogue.
It is still unclear whether a resolution on China is to be adopted in this year’s session. The EU is in close contact with the United States, which was last year’s proposer. The same applies to another issue that has attracted attention in the Human Rights Commission, namely the resolution regarding the human rights situation in Cuba, for which the Czech Republic and Poland took responsibility last year.
Among the resolutions on particular themes, the EU will, in the future too, take responsibility for the resolutions concerning the rights of the child and the death penalty. Where women’s rights are concerned, the Human Rights Commission will be deciding upon a number of resolutions to which the EU is strongly committed, even though they are not EU initiatives. It is as yet uncertain what initiatives will be required from the EU when it comes to the Human Rights Commission’s resolution concerning the World Conference Against Racism, while the EU's participation in the preparations for this World Conference will undoubtedly be one of the greatest challenges during this six-month period.
The so-called omnibus resolution on the rights of the child, prepared in cooperation with the Latin American group, has unfortunately become so extensive that it has become almost impossible to deal with. It is therefore the EU’s ambition to reduce the size of the resolution to a minimum and, in the process, make the rights perspective central. This ambition is reinforced by the desire to make a useful contribution to the preparations for the UN’s special session on children in September 2001.
Work in opposition to the death penalty is a priority issue for the EU’s common foreign policy within the area of human rights, as may partly be seen from the EU’s guidelines adopted in 1998. An important feature of this work is the Human Rights Commission’s resolution concerning the death penalty. The ambition, this year too, is to achieve as strong support as possible for this resolution.
An important prerequisite for the EU’s active involvement in issues affecting human rights is good access to relevant information. In this area, the EU countries’ and the Commission’s representatives around the world have an important role to play when it comes to gathering information. Close cooperation with private organisations is a central factor, as is cooperation with regional organisations. Last but not least, the EU will continue to give every support to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights."@en1
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