Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-223"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is particularly concerned about the deaths and injury caused every year by explosive remnants of war. Apart from directly killing and injuring civilians, explosive remnants of war often hamper humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping forces, reconstruction following conflict and development in general, which is why the Union has taken an active part in the debate on explosive remnants of war within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
I should also like to point out that no reports have been submitted to the Council on the use of depleted uranium ammunition by the American or British forces during the intervention in Afghanistan. The Council has not addressed the question of the application of the protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons on non-detectable fragments to which all the Member States are party.
Nor has the Council discussed ongoing work on this question at the United Nations.
Finally, the Council does not have a catalogue of depleted uranium ammunition in current use. Decisions on the use of various types of ammunition are taken by Member States exercising their national sovereignty. All the Member States are party to the Geneva Conventions. Similarly, the Council has received no information about the use of depleted uranium ammunition in Chechnya, nor has it discussed the possibility of making the use of cluster bombs or depleted uranium a war crime under the statute of the International Criminal Court.
Allow me to quote a few examples of Union activities in this sector. In June 2001, the Union circulated a discussion paper on explosive remnants of war at the meeting held on the subject in the run-up to the second review congress on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
The General Affairs Council issued conclusions on 19 November 2001 promoting the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, in which it called on the second review congress to set up a working party on explosive remnants of war.
Thirdly, the European Union submitted a working paper to the second review congress on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva in December 2001, calling for legal instruments to be introduced in order to deal with explosive remnants of war, as a result of which efforts will be made to prevent explosive remnants of war, including through provisions requiring them to be more reliably designed and to have self-destruct mechanisms, and to prevent physical injury from detonators in explosive remnants of war.
The Union also submitted a paper on explosive remnants of war to the team of government experts set up by the second review congress.
During the congress of the States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Presidency stressed on behalf of the European Union that the introduction of a legally binding instrument on explosive remnants of war within the framework of the Convention was a priority issue for the Union. The congress agreed with the recommendation of the team of government experts that negotiations should start on an instrument for these explosives. The Council’s competent working party will be discussing future Union action in this sector.
I should like to point out on behalf of the Council that the Member States of the Union are not unanimously in favour of declaring an immediate moratorium on the use of all types of cluster bombs. The Council has not received reports of any NATO members using cluster bombs. The common action by the Union in November 1997 dealt in its first three articles with the question of the universality of the agreement banning mines, in which the Member States of the Union set a target of totally eliminating anti-personnel mines worldwide. The common action authorised the Presidency to take suitable measures. These measures have consisted to date of demarches to countries which have not yet signed up to the Convention, including associated countries, and it has also recommended that churches sign the Convention. These demarches are carried out by the Presidency at the time.
The Union has also been promoting the universality of the Convention at all the appropriate fora, especially the United Nations. The resolutions of the General Assembly on the application of the Convention have been unanimously supported by the Member States of the European Union. In addition, the European Parliament and Council resolutions of 23 July 2001 concerning action against anti-personnel landmines in developing countries and in third countries other than developing countries both state in article 3 that operations against landmines financed by the Union must in principle benefit those countries which are party to the convention banning landmines. Exceptions may only be made for humanitarian reasons. This stand by the Union has created an important incentive for countries to sign up to the convention banning landmines.
The European Union and its Member States are the main international source of funding for action against landmines, which in itself is an important way of promoting compliance with the convention."@en1
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