Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-04-Speech-1-160"
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"en.20060904.21.1-160"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is obviously a pleasure for me to find myself back here today before this Parliament in order to discuss a country that is particularly dear to my heart – the Democratic Republic of Congo – and, more specifically, in order to discuss the electoral process that is currently under way there.
In this connection, I am convinced that MONUC and EUFOR and the people of Congo will be able to do a great deal to help prevent outbursts and acts of violence in Kinshasa. Faced with these objective difficulties, some early, encouraging signs are reaching us from the ground. Under the auspices of the United Nations, a joint committee on the Kinshasa events has just been put in place; it will be divided into two sub-committees, an independent investigation sub-committee, which will be in charge of establishing the facts about the events of 20, 21 and 22 August in Kinshasa, and a sub-committee that will have the task of defining the codes of conduct necessary for the election campaign, ahead of the second round of the presidential election and post-election period, to go off peacefully, in accordance with the will of the Congolese people.
The two parties have also promised to cooperate fully with the independent investigation committee and have committed themselves to working in favour of the electoral process, in accordance with the global and inclusive agreement, signed in Pretoria. To this end, the two sub-committees began their work on 30 August 2006. On the other hand, it is important for the other African players, particularly the African Union and South Africa, to commit themselves to taking a leading role in the actions aimed at bringing President Kabila and Vice-President Bemba closer together, in the common interest of the nation.
As regards the European Commission, I am pleased to inform you that I have just agreed to the request put to us by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to help in covering the USD 46 million financial gap in the electoral process by contributing an additional EUR 16 million; the Community’s total contribution to the electoral process will therefore increase to EUR 165 million.
I can also confirm to you that the election observation mission, placed under the control of General Morillon, will continue to monitor the progress of the electoral process, in this interim period, until its conclusion.
You will recall that, after the Lusaka ceasefire agreements were signed in July 1999, the European Union and the European Commission worked tirelessly alongside Congo not only to restore peace and stability there, but also to restore peace and stability throughout the Great Lakes region. It is with a certain pride, I believe, that we can say today that the peace and democracy process in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the rare cases in which the European Union has been able to show itself to be a real political player by deploying all of its external policy instruments. It is worth pointing out, in this regard, the increased importance of development cooperation in the context of the Cotonou Agreement, which had been suspended for more than a decade, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the European Security and Defence Policy, the appointment of a special envoy and the only military operations conducted outside Europe: Artemis in 2003, in order to bring peace to Ituri, and now EUFOR, in order to directly support a United Nations peacekeeping mission and an election observation mission led by your fellow Member, General Morillon, and in which a good number of you have participated.
I am delighted that so many diplomatic and financial efforts should have finally led to a first round ballot of the presidential election and the legislative elections being held on 30 July. This first brush with democracy, after more than 40 years, occurred under what can be described as model conditions, given the overall situation in the country. The election observation mission was able to observe first hand the objective difficulties that the country and its population are experiencing. In spite of these difficulties and the disturbances that took place in the wake of the provisional publication of the first round presidential election results, this is an important result, with which we can only be satisfied.
I can assure you that, throughout this process, the task has not been easy for anyone, and especially not for the people of Congo and their leaders, who have inherited a country that has been divided and rocked by years of war. A country in which 30 years of poor governance and corruption have destroyed the institutional capacities of the rule of law, irreparably damaged the basic infrastructure and profoundly altered the socio-economic fabric and social organisation.
These elections represent a unique opportunity to draw a line once and for all under the bad practices of the past, which have led the country into bankruptcy, plunged it into the depths of war and dragged it into the vicious circle of under-development and poverty. Congo possesses considerable natural resources, occupies a strategic position at the crossroads of Central Africa, and has high-quality human resources; I firmly believe that Congo will be called upon one day to play a major role in the stabilisation and development of the whole of Africa if good governance, the rule of law, human rights and the key elements to which Congo has subscribed by ratifying the Cotonou Agreement are fully respected in there.
Thanks to the work done thus far, there is now an opportunity to really lay new institutional and administrative foundations in the country and to embark upon – and I am by no means exaggerating here – a radical reform of the State. It is not the interest of a few individuals that is at stake here, but clearly that of the whole of Congo and its population, and we, the European Union, have a moral obligation to respond in an effective and clear-sighted manner to this requirement that the people of Congo are voicing out loud.
The deplorable events that, on 20, 21 and 22 August, followed the provisional publication of the results, have not, in my opinion, done anything to taint the symbolic value of this major act in the history of Congo. Through their massive turnout at the elections and their model behaviour, the people of Congo have taught their leaders and their politicians a great and fine lesson in democracy and good citizenship, one that cannot go without being mentioned.
With the second round of the presidential election, scheduled for 29 October 2006, in prospect, the two presidential candidates must therefore be called on by all possible means to submit to the verdict of the ballot boxes and, above all, to respect the results unconditionally. In this connection, I also wanted to point out the importance, which has often been overlooked until now, of the results of the legislative elections. These results will determine the majority in parliament, from which the prime minister and future government will have to derive. Indeed, the new Constitution provides the country with the institutional structure of a modern country in which the separation of powers guarantees a balance of forces and in which the government is called upon to be accountable to its citizens by regularly submitting to elections.
In spite of the difficulties over the last few days, the aim of the European Union’s action in DRC can only be to make a success of a transitional process that must hinge on the establishment of new authorities and institutions on the basis of the results that will come from the ballot boxes, in line with the international standards of transparency and reliability in electoral matters. It is clear that the situation remains tense and that this tension is liable to mount further as the election campaign and the date of 29 October, which has been set for the second round, draw near. It is therefore vital that the international community continues closely and constantly to monitor the situation on the ground."@en1
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