Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-019"
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"en.20060214.4.2-019"2
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"Mr President, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this own-initiative report by Mr Agnoletto on the human rights and democracy clause in EU agreements. I believe this is an ambitious and serious initiative by the rapporteur. He has produced a report that the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has described as one of the most important reports for some time.
Human rights clauses have been included in EU international or trade agreements for more than 50 years. As the Commissioner has said, they involve over 120 different countries. This report assesses the effectiveness of such human rights clauses as regards implementation and adherence and proposes new ways to strengthen the clause to make it more effective and better monitored.
Human rights clauses have had some success in the past. If the truth be told, however, in many cases human rights clauses in EU agreements with third countries have not been worth the paper they were written on. Therefore a trade and cooperation relationship develops as a result of an agreement, yet basic and clear breaches of human rights continue; human rights clauses are ignored or not taken seriously, but there are no consequences. This is a regrettable situation; not only is it a missed opportunity for the EU to use its considerable influence better in order to raise human rights standards, it also undermines the credibility of the EU in a key policy area.
This report goes into a lot of detail about what a new human rights clause could or should look like, how it could be monitored and enforced to make it more effective and what the consequences of breaching the clause might be in different cases. In essence, however, the report aims to do two things. Firstly, to ensure that a new and improved human rights and democracy clause, based on a respect for international law and accepted EU conventions, is included in all new international agreements entered into by the EU. Secondly, a mechanism must be put in place that better monitors adherence to the human rights clause, so that breaches of the clause have a range of real consequences for the overall agreement. This would ensure that human rights are given the kind of political priority the Commissioner has spoken of today."@en1
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