Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-25-Speech-3-303"
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"en.20061025.25.3-303"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, thank you for pushing forward this process of reflection on this strategically vitally important country in the Middle East. I think this was a very important debate.
Allow me to answer a few very specific questions. One was on human rights. In the absence of an association agreement in force, the European Union has no platform for an in-depth dialogue on human rights with Syria where it could also discuss critical issues – and there are many to be discussed – such as the abrogation of emergency rule, the amendments to the laws on politically partisan NGOs, the granting of citizenship to stateless Kurds or the setting-up of a national council on human rights.
I do not think we should make total progress on human rights a precondition for signature. However, we – meaning the representatives of the Commission and the Member States in Damascus especially – use our political instruments such as démarches and political declarations to denounce the most severe abuses of human rights. For instance, we raise with the Syrian authorities the situation of prisoners of conscience, detainees, on a very regular basis; and we also systematically observe the trials at the state security court. In addition, through our cooperation programmes we are supporting the emergence of an open civil society in Syria.
The Commission therefore launched six micro-projects in January under the European initiative for democracy and human rights. These target Arab lawyers, women’s organisations, refugee organisations, the Kurdish minority and the media, and also promote women’s and children’s rights. However, in the present situation of tightening control by the security services, those projects and most training activities have had some difficulty in getting off the ground. The authorities challenge the legality of these projects in Syria, political NGOs are sometimes tolerated but not always authorised, and we are therefore investigating solutions to these problems. Of course, we have also raised individual cases directly with the Syrian Government.
With regard to questions of assistance, EU financial assistance has not gone to supporting the regime, as was mentioned earlier by some colleagues here. It has gone, for example, to supporting the private sector and also the small and medium-sized enterprises. We have helped the people directly, for instance through health programmes, and we have targeted help at getting reforms to open up the economy and trade, competition and investment – things that will be very important for the future development of the country.
Finally, I would like to reiterate a point I made earlier. We are in favour of a dialogue with Syria with a political and economic perspective. We are trying to maintain a positive perspective, building on progress that has already been made, for example in supporting the reforms the government is undertaking to open up the economy that I have just mentioned to and decentralise power. But at the same time, as I said before, we will be looking at practical action on regional issues such as the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, and playing a positive role, for instance in Palestine. This will determine how fast we can proceed with our future engagement, and I see that a great majority in this debate also seems to lean in that direction."@en1
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