Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-03-Speech-4-176"
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"en.20030703.11.4-176"2
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".
Mr President, the Commission has listened carefully to your speeches and the various contributions made to this debate. We believe that the coming national elections will be a key moment in the development and consolidation of the democratic system in this country. The Union is firmly committed to supporting this process, which will be backed up by the presence of international observers.
It is true, however, that in this regard we share Parliament’s concern that the existence of acts of political violence and the creation of a climate of interference and impunity at the moment is creating tensions in relation to this electoral process. Violence prior to elections is an issue which has been pointed out and highlighted by the Union during the elections of 1998 and 2002 and, although the majority of observers agree that the level of violence seems to be diminishing, there is still concern about its impact on the electoral process.
The Commission sincerely hopes that the measures adopted by the authorities to ensure that the law is complied with, without intimidation, harassment or violence, will have a positive effect and I can assure you that, in this regard, the Commission, in close coordination with the Member States, is continuing to monitor the process closely, in order to try to ensure that these situations do not arise.
The Commission is also concerned about the need for press freedom in order to overcome the difficulties resulting from a public media which is firmly controlled by the government. In this regard, the Commission is insisting on the effective application of the positive measures adopted by the Cambodian authorities, and in particular by the national electoral committee, with regard to the media during the period prior to the elections.
There is no doubt that this issue will be of particular interest and concern to the European Union's mission of electoral observers, which began on 11 June, with the arrival of the basic team, headed by Mr Evans: 36 European observers have already arrived in Cambodia and 70 additional observers should arrive on 22 July. The head of the mission of electoral observers will make a preliminary statement immediately after the elections.
With regard to our capacity for action in Cambodia, I must point out that the National Indicative Programme 2002-2004 allows us, by means of contributing resources, to try to have an influence on the processes of democratisation in the country. In this regard, the whole concept of governance has been treated as a fundamental horizontal and transversal issue, in all areas of cooperation. So far, we have allocated EUR 10 million to this field, which have allowed us, in particular, to support the electoral process.
All of these elements reflect the commitment of the Community and the Commission in the field of human rights and democracy, as demonstrated by the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, which has treated Cambodia as one of the fundamental target countries for this experiment. The NGOs, selected by means of invitations to tender, are acting as one of the main channels for the implementation of actions, within the context of this initiative, which are directly benefiting the Cambodian population.
These are the elements on which we are working, and this is the way we believe progress can be made on this process of consolidation and on achieving the fairest possible elections which will allow us to take a step forward in pursuit of this objective which we all share."@en1
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