Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-16-Speech-2-016"
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"en.20041116.7.2-016"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to arm or to develop, that is the question. We estimate that arms imports in fact account for over 20% of the developing countries’ debt. In those countries, military spending often far exceeds the health budget or the education budget, and sometimes it even exceeds both put together. It is therefore crucial to these countries’ sustainable development that they significantly stem the flow of arms imports. It is not possible to live for very long in a world in which USD 900 billion goes on military spending, whereas only USD 325 billion is spent on agricultural subsidies and only USD 60 billion is set aside for development aid.
Against this backdrop, to take just one example, between 1995 and 2001 in Sub-Saharan Africa, military spending rose by 47% and life expectancy fell by four years. Yes, the European Union’s Code of Conduct on arms exports has existed since 1998. Yes, EU countries have made progress. As a matter of urgency, however, we must go further, especially given that other powers, such as the United States, Russia and China, do not practise such self-restraint. I feel that the measures laid down by Parliament’s Committee on International Trade will indeed make it possible for us to go further, even if they fall short of what some of us had hoped for. It is essential that these measures be adopted because they will help us to establish a different mindset. I should like to give particular mention to the complete harmonisation of the policy on Member States’ arms exports in the medium term, helping arms manufacturers to change direction and diversify into other products in order to prevent social crises and the loss of skills, the creation of a European agency for the control of arms exports and, most importantly, the creation of a tax on arms exports that will benefit the victims of conflict and the fight against poverty.
Consequently, if the EU adopted those proposals and turned them into practical legal measures, that would represent considerable progress and would provide the impetus for putting pressure on countries such as the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia and Israel.
What would be even more effective would be if all of this could lead to measures aimed at controlling the origin of capital in tax havens set up in EU territory. By doing that, we would be taking a step towards saving the human race.
I should like to conclude, if I may, by quoting Albert Einstein: ‘Either the human race will destroy arms, or arms will destroy the human race’."@en1
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