Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-093"
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"en.20020424.4.3-093"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both these reports have addressed many important issues, not all of which can be considered here, but tolerance, respect and mutual esteem always reach their limits when universal human rights are violated. The way politics works, it always involves a tightrope walk with hope on one side and despair on the other. Events in Zimbabwe at present tempt us to despair, while we can perhaps derive hope from developments in Sierra Leone. Things can, though, seem quite different the day after tomorrow.
We pointed the way with our collaboration with the ACP states on the Cotonou Agreement, with its clauses on human rights and democracy, and its commitment to good governance and the rule of law. We have an instrument, even if it is not as solid as we – whose political dialogue in Parliament supports this work – might well have wished. This political dialogue, I believe, is of outstanding importance, as agreement can be reached, in the final analysis, only through discussions with each other. That is why there is also the entitlement to consultation before suspension is resorted to. Even that is not a straightforward matter, for we have to ask ourselves how we are to punish the dictatorial regime, without at the same time affecting the people. In this connection, then, I tend to go along with a proverb that is often used in Germany: ‘The impossible gets done at once, but miracles take a bit longer.’
We will have to have staying power, and I do not know whether human rights really are violated more frequently today than in the past. What is certain, though, is that crime, too, has become public. More things become known to us today, and we are of course forced to take action. The fact, though, that crime is now public and that there are almost always cameras there to record it, gives a chance of fighting things that used to remain hidden away."@en1
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