Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-27-Speech-3-014"
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"en.20050427.7.3-014"2
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".
Mr President, I welcome the presence of the Council and the Commission, who are here to listen to our deliberations on an important report. It has been a fascinating and challenging experience for me to produce the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2004 and the EU’s policy on the matter. It is my first report in Parliament and I was glad to take on such a significant one. It was an honour for my party to be given the rapporteurship.
The report also deals with many individual countries. I have been encouraged by the growing influence that the European Union clearly has on many countries in the world. Many ambassadors and representatives from different countries have come to me concerned …
The title of the report is very broad-ranging and the report itself correspondingly deals with very many issues and very many countries. Seventy countries are dealt with in this report, where we shine a light on human rights abuses. The report deals with 70 different countries and eight thematic issues. Therefore, I was determined from the outset to give the report a very tight structure so that people interested in different human rights issues and themes in different countries, could navigate it quickly and efficiently, as opposed to having a lengthy report with no headings, requiring people to read a third, half or indeed the whole report to find the area in which they were interested.
The preparation process has been a detailed one. We debated this report in the Subcommittee on Human Rights on 23 November 2004, again on 31 January 2005 and on 17 March – St Patrick’s Day – 2005. The full Committee on Foreign Affairs has also had plenty of time to debate and contribute to this report. It did so on 17 January, 16 March and again on 29 March. The process has therefore been thorough. Consultation between the groups, in particular the shadow rapporteurs, has been constructive and positive and I wish to thank my colleagues in other groups for that process. From the outset I made it quite clear that I wanted this report to reflect the concerns of Parliament as a whole and not of any one group. I hope we have achieved that and that it will be reflected in a strong endorsement of the report tomorrow. I have no reason to believe that will not be the case.
Now we get down to the real question: what has all this work been about; what useful purpose that can this report serve now and in the future? Let me outline the contribution I believe it can make. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, this report must set the agenda for Parliament and must be a guide for Parliament when it tries to influence both the Commission and the Council with regard to the direction they should be taking on thematic issues and the priority the European Union gives to human rights.
The first thematic issue is a difficult one politically. It concerns human rights and the fight against terrorism, which in many ways seems like a contradiction in terms. However, we are living in a modern world, where there are real terrorism threats both to Europe and to other parts of the world, on which the European Union must take a position. At the same time, we must be true to our values in relation to respect for human rights and try to get the balance right. I would encourage the Council in particular to look at the first thematic issue in detail. I believe the report makes a balanced attempt to answer that difficult political question.
The second thematic issue is children’s rights. I received a lot of lobbying on this issue, and mush attention was devoted to it. It is genuinely felt that the European Union has not responded comprehensively and could improve its policy in this area. Therefore, the report calls on the Commission to present, as soon as possible, a detailed communication on children’s rights, linking the issue with EU development policy.
The third area concerns the impact that conflict situations have on women and children, leading to tragic consequences on a regular basis. It deals with issues such as rape as a war tool. Many thousands of women have been abused in the most horrific ways during conflict situations, as a tool of war. It also deals with the issue of child soldiers. Unfortunately, there are still tens of thousands of children who have AK-47s put into their hands and are sent out to war to kill other people. It deals with the psychological effects that has on those children as they grow older. I shall refer to the European Union’s response to that shortly.
The next section relates to the death penalty, an area where the European Union has had a lot of success in influencing its neighbours through the Neighbourhood Policy and has brought about a moratorium on the death penalty in many countries. Indeed, we are working towards achieving a ban on it.
The report also deals with trafficking in human beings, the role of international business and its responsibilities in the human rights field and, perhaps most important of all, the issue of impunity and the role of the International Criminal Court, which deserves the support of the European Union. It is my belief that in many parts of the developing world impunity is the single biggest contributing factor to continued human rights abuses, because people believe that they will not be punished or held to account for the horrific actions they either sanction or take themselves. This report very strongly supports the ICC. It also strongly encourages the European Union to persuade influential countries such as the United States to support the ICC."@en1
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