Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-05-Speech-4-152"
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"en.20010405.8.4-152"2
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".
Mr President, I realise that the questions on this point are addressed more to the Council than the Commission and that we are a poor substitute. Nonetheless, the Commission is examining the problem in depth and we share many of the concerns which have just been voiced. Broadly speaking, our position can be summarised as follows.
As regards this year’s decision, namely that we will support a motion for a resolution which we do not co-sponsor, this does not mean to say that we rule out the possibility of returning to this mechanism at a later date. Dialogue is clearly an acceptable option only if it leads to progress on the ground. This is the position which was adopted in January on the EU-China dialogue and in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council meeting on 19 March. We will therefore support this resolution if it is put to the vote. We will not co-sponsor it since we think that direct dialogue still has potential.
The living conditions of the bulk of the Chinese population have improved over the last twenty years as economic reform and liberalisation have given citizens a certain degree of economic and social freedom.
Unfortunately – and I do stress unfortunately – the same cannot be said of civil and political rights, and the human rights situation still falls considerably short of the commitments that China has entered into internationally.
As you know, back in 1996 we set up a bilateral dialogue with China, which provides a suitable forum for frank exchanges of views which I can bear witness to, having attended the last summit meeting between China and the European Union during the French Presidency.
A number of positive signs have emerged, such as the ratification of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on 28 February and the signing, last November, of the outline agreement with the UN High Commission for Human Rights which, we hope, will now be implemented. We are clearly concerned, however, to see more tangible results on the ground.
Our main preoccupations are the same as yours, the continued persecution of political dissidents, the restrictions imposed on religious freedom, the application of the death penalty, the ratification of the UN covenants and their implementation, especially as regards political and civil rights, the treatment of ethnic minorities, arbitrary detention and so on.
As far as the United Nations is concerned, during the General Affairs Council meeting on 19 March, we decided to back the resolution on China tabled by the United States within the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, should that resolution be put to the vote.
We also agreed that the European Members of the Human Rights Commission would vote against any non-action motion that is tabled and would lobby to ensure the other members did the same. We feel that the very notion of non-action is totally opposed to the spirit of dialogue that we have tried to establish. We restated our position in Geneva on 29 March that we take the issue of the violation of human rights seriously wherever it occurs in the world.
As to the question of co-sponsoring the resolution, we feel that the dialogue on human rights between the European Union and China is a privileged channel of communication working to improve the situation in the many spheres of concern to us. This is in fact the position which was endorsed by the Council, because we feel that it may have a positive impact."@en1
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