Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-25-Speech-2-215"
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"en.20070925.30.2-215"2
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".
Madam President, State Secretary Lobo Antunes has convincingly demonstrated the Council’s efforts here. I have nothing to add to what the Minister has said. Our Group supports you fully in your efforts to make it clear that the European Union wants to give strong backing not just to a moratorium, but to the aim of banning the death penalty throughout the world.
As the previous speaker has said, the European Parliament has already said twice this year: this Parliament is spearheading the battle to ban the death penalty. For us as European Social Democrats, the death penalty is the lowest point in human ethics. I come from a country in which human dignity is the first article of the constitution. The duty of each and every government regulation is to preserve and protect it. That is the message of my country’s constitution. On the basis of that message we in the European Union have drawn up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, the prime message of which is as above: human dignity is the foremost guiding principle of the European Union.
Simply put, the death penalty is the opposite of human dignity. It is the vilification of the human being down to the lowest point of his or her existence. The duty of each and every morally-driven democrat is to ban it. We are fighting for this moratorium to be supported by the European Union. Why, then, is there no consensus in the Council?
There is one Member State in the Council boycotting a joint resolution of the European Union. I shall not hesitate in naming it publicly here. It is the Polish government, which does not want us to make this fundamental decision. It is linking the issue of the death penalty with other issues and saying: when the others link their opinion on this issue with that on abortion and euthanasia, then we too will be prepared to argue against the death penalty. That is a pretextual argument! Why? I’ll gladly tell you. I should like to read a quotation to you, which comes from a radio interview of 28 July this year. I quote: “I personally was, am and remain an advocate of the death penalty. A return to this penalty is not possible at present, but I am counting on the fact that a more favourable climate will prevail in the EU in future.” Lech Kaczyński, President of the Republic of Poland.
That is the reason why there has been no European Council resolution to date on this moratorium. The Polish President is an advocate of the death penalty and he hopes that there will be a better climate in the European Union for re-introducing it. I therefore say: this Parliament is there to ensure that the climate in Europe remains against the death penalty. That is the crucial point.
As long as we as European Socialists have influence, we shall do this. I would ask the Council one question, however: Mr Lobo Antunes, not of you personally, but of the Heads of State and Government of the other 26 States. How long will the other 26 Heads of State and Government put up with this and remain silent about the fact that an advocate of the death penalty, who states quite openly that he is so, is able to paralyse the European Council on this issue? We need an answer to this, too."@en1
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