Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-299"
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"en.20051116.21.3-299"2
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".
Mr President, I would like firstly to thank not just my fellow Members, but also the Commissioner, for being here, although I must express my regret that the Council, significantly, is not here. It had promised to attend but, owing to a last minute change to the order of business, it cannot be here. I do not believe that this problem is the fault of the Council, but rather the Bureau, and I regret that we cannot now hold this debate together with the Council. Given that my report evaluates the Council’s actions, its absence is particularly regrettable.
Finally, on the subject of presidencies, I would like to end by expressing my regret that one thing is unfortunately missing from the priorities of the coming Austrian Presidency: there is no mention of the issue of small arms.
Given the importance of this issue, not just in this House, but in civil society in general, we believe that its absence is very worrying and that it must be included within the context of the need and commitment the Council and this House have repeatedly expressed in favour of an international arms treaty.
I would insist that this report represents a step forward and I hope that we do not waste more time in relation to this issue, since we do not have time to waste.
Nevertheless, this is an important, fundamental, issue, as demonstrated by the interest shown by many sectors of civil society in the issue of both arms control and the lack of such control. Selling arms is not like selling fridges, t-shirts or computers. It is an issue that has very serious repercussions at many levels and the consequences of mass uncontrolled sales may therefore be disastrous.
We must remember a significant fact: every minute somebody falls victim to a firearm. Furthermore, spending on this kind of export and this kind of purchase prejudices other investments that are often much more necessary for economic and social development. Moreover, those exports and purchases often have a destabilising effect from a regional point of view, because they often lead to an arms race which will ultimately present us with a huge problem. For all of these reasons, transparency and control in relation to this kind of export is fundamental.
The figures are clear. In 2003, the international arms trade turned over between 34 000 and 43 000 million dollars and the main exporters include European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany, from which 25% of total world exports originated. We Europeans therefore have a great responsibility.
Furthermore, of the main importers, we must stress that China and India are two of the countries that receive and buy the greatest quantities of these types of products.
We have a code of conduct in Europe approved in 1998 which is insufficient – as we have been saying for a long time. It is weak and it is not legally binding. In the report that we debated last year, therefore, for which it was also my honour to be rapporteur, we proposed making it legally binding ― which we have also taken up in this new review report. In fact, the report approved a few weeks ago by the Committee on Foreign Affairs clearly specified the need to strengthen the code of conduct and turn it into a legally binding text.
Furthermore, this report raises other issues that are also important: for example, the fact that transfers of production capacity are subject to the code and that special monitoring mechanisms are established for cases in which it has been decided to lift the arms embargo. I would just like to say that, with regard to the specific case of China, we must remember that, once again, this House has stated that it is not in favour of lifting the arms embargo in the current circumstances. Firstly, because sufficient and reasonable conditions are not in place for doing so and, secondly, because doing so would send the completely wrong message, not just to China, but to the world in general, about how seriously we take this kind of embargo.
The report also mentions aspects that relate to arms brokering, the regulation of torture equipment, the impact of enlargement and also the role to be played by the European Union in relation to the United Nations.
The Dutch Presidency promised us – and we are pleased about this – that there would be a review of the code and that it would be strengthened, and also that it would be turned into a common position. We are at the end of 2005, two more Presidencies have gone by and we are still waiting. We must acknowledge that the British Presidency has placed great emphasis on the need to conclude it and we hope that this will have been done by the end of its six months, but for the moment we are waiting."@en1
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