Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-29-Speech-4-126"
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"en.20040129.5.4-126"2
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"Secretary-General, every year, 17 million hectares of tropical forest are lost. We are destroying the planet’s biodiversity at the same rate at which the dinosaurs were wiped out. There are more than 110 million active mines, distributed among 70 countries. In ten years, two million children have been killed in wars or by landmines. Every day, 8 000 young people are infected with HIV. More than four million young people have died of AIDS. Thirteen million have lost their mothers or both parents, but 95% of them live in Africa, so it is not, of course, really our problem. Or is it?
When I was young, I dreamed of working for the UN and of being able to play my part in uniting the nations of the world in peace and cooperation. I am therefore very happy that, in the Conference of Presidents, I was able to register my group’s unanimous support for the UN, because never before have there been so many innocent and poverty-stricken children who need a helping-hand from ourselves in our cosy little corner of the rich part of the world.
We who sit in Parliament may disagree about a lot, but we can all agree in paying tribute to you as Secretary-General of our common, worldwide organisation, the UN. No one can suspect the UN’s blue berets of having any remit other than peace. I therefore hope that the UN can be given a common and permanent military force to deploy once all peaceful means have been exhausted.
You must not only be secretary of a Security Council whose members are in disagreement. You must also be general of a reformed and dynamic UN. In war, you must be commander-in-chief of all the generals, for, without UN permission, it should again be prohibited to go to war.
It perhaps sounds naive, but it is still my dream that there will one day be so many naive people in the world that we shall not permit the destruction of our planet and the killing of innocent children through landmines, famine or HIV. We would do well to transfer a couple of hundred euros in aid from each EU cow to those whose need is greater, namely citizens who today have to place their children in something that is not a bed, following something that is not a meal and perhaps with an illness that makes life before death all too short.
Thank you, Mr Kofi Annan, for doing more than ourselves to engage with the most important matters in the world, and thank you for your moving speech.
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