Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-25-Speech-3-269"
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"en.20070425.35.3-269"2
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"Mr President, firstly may I congratulate Mr Coveney. In his report, he has adopted the new approach which we agreed last year, that the work of Parliament, in terms of an annual human rights report, should be to scrutinise what is done by Council and the Commission and advancing what we can do throughout the European Union to promote human rights, not simply acting as a commentary.
I thank him and congratulate him for that. I was very sad to hear that he will be pursuing a national parliamentary career in future and not standing again for this Parliament. I just want to place on record that he has been a good champion of human rights and a good colleague of ours.
In this debate, I believe we can emphasise that the European Union can do more to promote human rights. Many of us are concerned. Parliament will continue to be intimately involved in ensuring that Europe’s actions and involvement in the UN Human Rights Council are more effective. It has not made the start that we all hoped for. In the resolution, we drew attention to the fact that the Commission is chairing the Kimberley Process. Let us use that to get the independent verification system that the NGOs called for by St Valentine’s Day 2007, which was a good aim.
We welcome the fact that after our criticisms of Europe’s position vis-à-vis Belarus and the ILO last year, and given the attacks and harassment of trade unionists, the Commission has now recommended pulling out of trade preferences for Belarus. You have listened. Thank you for that. We can do more.
On human rights treaties, we are concerned about cluster bombs. Many European countries, led by Belgium and including, I am pleased to say, my own country the United Kingdom, now support a binding treaty to ban cluster bombs.
I am deeply happy that Europe has led the campaign for the UN Convention on disabled people’s rights. That was the fastest agreed human rights convention in the UN’s history. The European Communities have signed up to it for the first time. Next year, let the Communities and the Member States sign the optional protocol so that there is a complaints procedure. Show us that you are still listening."@en1
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