Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-09-Speech-3-087"
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"en.20070509.13.3-087"2
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".
Mr President, I should like to commend the willpower of the Minister and of the Commissioner: I know what it is like to attend debates without being able to leave the room, and I hope they will not be too bored. I come now, with this debate, to a topic that is rather a new one for us.
The title of the report is not appropriate. It is not so much about the European Union’s relationship with reforms in the Arab world as about a relational process of the European Union with the Arab world for the purpose of facilitating reforms.
For the sake of speed, I shall set out my comments as a number of points. The first point, as you all know, is that all is not well in the various Arab states. We all receive vast amounts of information and hear complaints about failure to observe human rights, about often dictatorial governments, about huge, scandalous financial inequalities in the various countries and about the lack of economic take-off, even in places where there is oil. There is indeed a malaise in the Arab world. A Lebanese Arabic writer even spoke about an Arab malaise. Behind this malaise, there is a long history of humiliation: colonialism, independence, lack of control of resources, of oil in particular, intellectual decline and, as a result, a corresponding rise in religious fundamentalism.
My second point is that it is in this context that belonging to the Arab world is perceived in most of these countries as an awareness of identity, a search for collective empowerment. That developed in the second half of the 20th century and particularly towards the end. Now, it is the League of Arab States which, internationally, is taking a stand on behalf of the different States and is being respected. It is the League’s resolutions that have brought about some progress in what is called the Middle East peace process, which is still not a peace process but from which it is hoped some results will emerge through the Arab League Summit. There is also, thanks to the media, something of a growth in Arab public opinion that is much more homogeneous than the diplomatic positions of the various States. It is also at the pan-Arab level that many intellectuals, especially Egyptians, but also Lebanese, even Algerians, pitch their message, rather than within their national context. Finally, it has to be said that the Arab League has never had to deal with religious problems. They are referred to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which is a different world. Arab identity is a secular concept, which can make our relationship easier.
My third point is: how do we, the European Union, deal with this Arab identity? By ignoring it. We have a strong, dense relationship with Iraq, and talk about it a great deal. We deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict, making very little reference to the preceding one. We speak about Algeria. We have strong bilateral relationships with Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, too. In short, we have relationships with all these countries that are of the public, state, bilateral kind, but we ignore the fact of their Arab identity.
The question that this own-initiative report puts to the Commission and to the Council is this: is there not good reason to move away from that and to do a bit more, in the light of the observations I was making in my second point? There is now an intellectual life, a political life and a diplomatic life in the Arab world at the level of its community. Is it not in the European Union’s interest to establish relations at this level also? The numerous standstills that we find in the Arab world, which are of course economic, financial, political, institutional and religious, are also to a large extent intellectual and cultural.
It is through intellectual and cultural relations that other relations will develop, and the purpose of this report is to suggest that we take note of that. Firstly by recognising that Arab identity is compatible with democracy and with modernity, even if the facts do not demonstrate it. There is, intellectually and politically, and in the speeches of the League, a real possibility. It is, moreover, the Arab League which, by slightly forcing the hand of many of its Member States, has produced an Arab Charter on Human Rights. We all know that it is not a great advance, that it is well behind our own European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Nonetheless, it is real progress compared with the situation we had a short time ago. And then, in the face of the great contemporary problem of the fight against terrorism, I think that we all wish to reach a relationship of complicity and alliance with the Arab nations against extremists and killers, rather than to condemn them all and to make this fight impossible.
It is in this context that the report suggests that we, the European Union, should strengthen our relations with everything that has a collective character in this matter: of course, the League of Arab States, but also, why not, the Gulf Cooperation Council and even the Arab Maghreb Union, if it were to be revived. Through these bodies, it is possible to develop a network of cultural and intellectual relations and to organise discussion seminars, which will bolster our support for the reforms.
This report, Mr President, is somewhat subtle. We are extending the hand of friendship to countries about which there is seemingly much to criticise. Our amendments debate will be between the extremism of the condemnations and the moderation of the hand of friendship which, while indeed recognising that there are strong criticisms to be made, would prefer to keep quiet about them as long as this hand of friendship can contribute to a process of reform that we all need."@en1
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