Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-120"
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"en.20011002.5.2-120"2
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". – Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Titley for another excellent and characteristically intelligent report, which we have read with very great interest. As his report and his speech have made clear, the issue of arms exports is tremendously complex and close collaboration is required by everyone in order to address its many different angles.
During the past few months Commission services have begun drafting EC legislation on a number of non-military items such as instruments of torture, to which the provisions of the code should, in our view, apply. Work is now near completion, and the Commission intends to submit a proposal to the Council soon. This marks a first step in tackling the issue.
Compilation of a more extended list, which might include items that also have civilian uses – instruments of internal repression such as riot-control equipment, for example – would require the commitment of significant additional resources. If we are going to take on such a task – which involves establishing the eventual end use of the items and, perhaps, the identity of the end user – then we shall need more resources. However we will, of course, pay careful attention to what Parliament has to say on that issue. Progress in that field is conditional on the willingness of Member States and Parliament to make additional resources available for these purposes.
So I repeat our gratitude to the honourable Member, Mr Titley, for an important report. I hope that year by year we can continue to respond constructively to what he has to say.
Anybody who looks at the violence around the world, the violence often associated with the breakdown of States, from Somalia to Sudan, to Sierra Leone, to Afghanistan; anybody who looks at the situation created by the breakdown of States knows how much the trade and small arms is responsible for continuing the violence and making the violence far more lethal. So this report is an important one, and I hope we can respond to it over the coming months and years with appropriately constructive behaviour.
There were a number of good speeches in the debate, some of which referred to the relevance of the appalling events of 11 September and their aftermath.
I should like to respond to what Mr Paisley had to say. As he is not in his place, maybe my remarks will be borne to him on angels' wings. I agree with the definitional point he made. It is an enormously important point for us to make. Some of us from Spain or the United Kingdom have personal experience of this; some of us have friends who have been murdered by terrorists. There is no such thing as a good terrorist. There is no distinction between good and bad terrorism. What is a terrorist? A terrorist is a man or woman or, alas, a deluded child who sets out in the morning to murder innocent men, women and children to make a political point – the propaganda of the deed. That is not justified. It is never justified. There are never extenuating circumstances, any more than there are ever extenuating circumstances from extrajudicial killings by a State. So I hope that when we start talking about definitions we will remember what terrorism really is. We will have views about the political roots of terrorism. We will have strong views about the importance of trying to find political solutions to some problems. However, I hope we will not be morally confused about what constitutes a terrorist act.
During the debate on last year's report, I stated that the ultimate responsibility for arms exports belongs to national governments. However, it is also clear that some aspects of the arms trade lie within the remit of the common foreign and security policy, with which the Commission is fully associated. The Commission is making every effort to move forward with the implementation of those recommendations which lie within Community competence and we stand ready to collaborate with Member States where joint responsibilities are involved, for example when one is talking about dual-use goods.
As Parliament is already aware, the associated countries of central and eastern Europe, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, and our EEA/EFTA partners have issued declarations through which they align themselves with the criteria and the principles contained in the European Union's Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. The Union has continued to assist the candidates in their efforts to bring their legislation and administration fully into line with the provisions of the code. Furthermore, the European Union continues to urge the world's main arms exporters to subscribe to the principles and criteria developed in our code. We would react most favourably to the idea of drafting an international code of conduct on arms transactions, on the condition that it is based on the same principles as the European Union code.
The Commission strongly supports the honourable Member's call for the establishment of common rules for European Union control of the legal trade in small arms and light weapons, as well as effective European Union controls to combat and eradicate trafficking in these arms. In this respect we welcome the agreement reached at the July 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Although the final text falls well short of the Union's initial expectations, it marks an important step forward. It represents a delicate and hard-fought compromise, which would not have been achievable only a couple of years ago. If all parties involved were to adopt a more positive attitude, the agreement would become a more effective tool for addressing the concerns of all participants in the future.
For the first time the international community has set out some principles for national and international measures which might curb the illegal trade in small arms. They aim to establish reliable controls on the production, export and transit of weapons; to apply reliable markings to them in order to trace their origin more successfully; to criminalise their unlicensed production and trade; to regulate the activities of brokers; and to destroy surplus stockpiles and all confiscated weapons.
A new conference will be held no later than 2006 – I suspect that recent events may bring that date forward – and in the intervening period, biennial meetings will consider the progress made on turning the objectives of the conclusions into tangible reality. We will work hard with the Member States to ensure an active and ambitious follow-up.
The European Union's commitment to concrete action in the field of small arms is illustrated by a number of projects currently under way or under consideration in different parts of the world. In Cambodia the European Union gives technical, administrative and financial support to the government and selected NGOs for actions aimed at promoting the collection, control and destruction of weapons. We also support Operation Rachel, a joint South Africa-Mozambique project, to collect and destroy arms left over since the civil war. We provide equipment to the Georgian and Ossetian police forces as part of a programme which consists of the voluntary handover and subsequent destruction of small arms in the region. We also support the UN Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Lima, which works to promote the control of small arms in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are also considering further projects in the Balkans, Africa and South Pacific."@en1
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