Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-279"
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"en.20050928.24.3-279"2
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"Everybody agrees about the need to reform the United Nations. The only problem is the shape that this reform should take. We agree that the UN system is much too complex and should be streamlined. I believe, however, that the biggest problem is not the reform of UN bodies, but the inability of UN members to reach political agreement, due to fundamentally opposing views concerning the work of the UN as such. Some members would like to see a strong UN, while others oppose such aims; it is precisely this that prevents agreement.
I am, however, more concerned about the UN commitment to reaching the so-called Millennium Development Goals, that is, to reduce poverty by half, to fight hunger, malaria and other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and to ensure respect for human rights, especially the rights of women. Although the UN has pledged to fulfil these objectives by 2015, poverty has still not been reduced, and in fact it is increasing. It is estimated that if we continued working at the current pace, it would take one hundred years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
In September I was the only member of an EU institution taking part in a women’s rights conference in China. It was the so-called Beijing +10 Conference. The Conference was held for the first time in 1975 and has been repeated every ten years since then. It is interesting that, since 1995, no country in the world has been able to organise a fifth conference on women’s issues. I find myself wondering whether the European Union is interested in information on how the declarations that we have co-signed are implemented, and how assistance provided to some countries by the European Union, especially in the form of financial help, is used.
If we want to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, financial assistance must be more than doubled. The European Union, as an important donor, must monitor the way in which this assistance is used. It must ensure that this assistance is not abused by being allocated for other purposes, and that the recipient country respects human rights. If there is no respect for human rights, financial assistance should be withdrawn. If, however, we fail to participate in conferences and do not learn about the kind of problems that arise during implementation, our assistance, intended to purchase medications and to build schools, may instead be used to purchase weapons or to recruit child soldiers."@en1
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