Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-17-Speech-3-174"
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"en.20060517.19.3-174"2
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".
Mr President, the job of the European Parliament is to scrutinise and hold to account the institutions of the European Union, yet every year since 1988 in this Parliament’s annual human rights report, we have scrutinised the record of governments across the world, but never asked the hard questions about what impact the EU itself has had in promoting compliance with international human rights law abroad. This year we are doing so.
When the last generation saw Nelson Mandela labelled a terrorist, when former East Germans smuggled themselves across the Berlin Wall, when the Holocaust represented one of the worst ethnic genocides in world history, the threats of terrorism, trafficking and racial hatred were a cue to agree human rights, not to tear them down. So if our generation is sincere in seeking the freedom of political prisoners like Aung San Suu Kyi, tackling the despicable trade in women and children for sexual exploitation and bringing the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in Darfur and in the Balkans to justice, we have to defend the concept of human rights at home as well as abroad. Europe must practice what it preaches.
I would like to thank colleagues from the Austrian Presidency who have agreed with us an enhanced role for Parliament, as the Council prepares its annual human rights report on behalf of the Union as a whole. This is not so much a question of institutional sensitivities: it is more that a unified and strengthened EU human rights report can provide a stronger voice for Europe and our commitment to human rights in the world. I hope our proposal for an annual EU list of countries of concern will be considered in that context.
I would like to thank the Commissioner, too, for her support for this approach and for listening and responding to Parliament by agreeing to a separate legal instrument for human rights. This will allow us to continue funding human rights projects, despite opposition from governments responsible for oppression and abuse. It is the right choice.
Of course Parliament will, this year and every year, offer constructive criticism. Why does the Council support UN reform which puts human rights onto an equal footing, yet itself have a part-time working group, compared to other foreign policy working groups which are staffed by permanent Brussels-based officials? Human rights are not a part-time occupation. When UN troops in Liberia stand accused of rape and torture, how can Europe launch its own ESDP mission in Aceh, Indonesia, without any human rights monitoring? Why do the EU’s human rights consultations allow Russia to exclude human rights NGOs and why does our human rights dialogue with China not even benefit from simultaneous language interpretation? And does Europe really apply human rights consistently when it fails to support criticisms of the abuse in both China and Russia, but is prepared to do so for less strategically important countries like Nepal or North Korea?
Explain to the families of 99 trade unionists murdered last year in Colombia, which has the worst record in the world, why Europe actually offers trade preferences to that country for its supposed protection of internationally agreed workers’ rights. Why have nine Member States, including Germany, Ireland, and Portugal, failed to sign the UN optional protocol against torture? Eleven EU countries refuse to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, including Britain, France and Spain.
Why have seven of our members considered signing so-called immunity agreements in opposition to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court? When human rights defenders face death threats for upholding their rights, how can evidence show that in Zimbabwe – scene of political imprisonment, mass evictions and the persecution of journalists – the European Commission delegation itself said that it was not aware of the EU’s guidelines for human rights defenders? We can do better.
We must stop the navel-gazing by EU representatives in international forums and, for the first time, genuinely link multilateral and bilateral negotiations in the EU so that abusive countries know they will face adverse consequences in the EU’s diplomatic trade and development policies.
We must use a more sophisticated sliding scale of sanctions and make it easier to find political agreement in the EU to apply them. We should ensure that one staff member in every Commission delegation, in 118 countries worldwide, is responsible for reporting and promoting human rights obligations. We must make the UN and its international human rights conventions a contractual obligation of the stabilisation, association and accession process, starting with ourselves.
Finally, as far as we ourselves are concerned, let me refer to the debate raging this week in my own country, the United Kingdom, on how human rights can be reconciled, given the changed threats of terrorism, people trafficking and organised crime. It is time to say that the threats might change, but that human rights are inviolable."@en1
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