Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-15-Speech-2-169"
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"en.20080115.24.2-169"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me give warm thanks to Mrs Angelilli for this report.
We still have much to do. Mrs Angelilli rightly says that we must consider migrant children. That is an aspect we will address specifically in the framework of European immigration policy: children are often victims, they are often the most vulnerable in the general context of migration flows. We must place more emphasis on the need to implement the European action plan to combat people-trafficking, with particular reference to children, in addition to women, for as the two weakest categories they are often the victims of international people-trafficking. We must look into means of financing practical proposals and projects under European programmes.
The new Daphne programme and the new fundamental rights programme may, for example, enable us also to provide financial aid for the European Network of Ombudspeople for Children. I attach great importance to that network and also, clearly, to the NGOs working in that field. The new programme, known as Daphne III, has been refinanced and may serve as a particularly useful instrument.
In conclusion, I am, of course, more than ready and willing to continue developing this political strategy, with a view also to producing very concrete results for our citizens in one of the areas particularly close to our heart.
From the start of my term of office, the rights of the child have clearly been a top priority, a central item of my agenda, and the cooperation with Parliament in this field too has now led to the policy lines that will be the outcome of this report – which I hope will be adopted by a very large majority – guidelines for action that the Commission will follow, for there is not a single point in that report that I do not endorse. It sets out horizontal initiatives that cover a number of policies, but the common denominator is that minors, that is children, form the heart of our society and it is, therefore, clear that they deserve our utmost attention.
Over the coming weeks I, together with my staff, will consider how to put the individual points contained in Mrs Angellili’s report into practice on the basis of concrete initiatives. There are, in fact, already some measures under way. They include the presentation of a communication that you have taken into account and that dates back to July 2006, a general communication on a European strategy on the rights of the child that has the entirely political objective of making those rights a political priority, as Mrs Angelilli noted.
Other measures now under way include the creation of a standard helpline telephone number, 116 000, which will be the same throughout Europe. Let me take this opportunity to invite the many Member States that have not yet put that measure into practice to lose no more time in doing so; here, I am obviously addressing not Parliament but Member State governments. That decision was taken more than a year ago yet more than half the Member States still do not have a helpline that actually works, although it is a decision that, I believe, could have been implemented in a short space of time.
Last October we discussed, with the Presidency in Lisbon, whether we could jointly set up a European network of early warning systems for the event of the abduction or disappearance of children. You know we were looking at the good example of the French system, we looked at how things worked in Belgium, we noted that Portugal and Greece were setting up, or in recent weeks have already set up systems; but it is clear that child abductors disregard borders and, therefore, early warning systems cannot stop at geographical borders.
We have done a lot of work on Internet crime against children. Our work with a conference of experts last November produced important results in terms of the kind of technical cooperation that could lead to the interconnection of electronic systems to prevent and react to on-line paedophilia. That is one of the most terrible threats to children, and you know that thanks to its inclusion among the 2007 priorities of Eurojust and Europol we are now able to dismantle many international paedophile networks operating via the Internet.
We also submitted a report last November – one of the points that was emphasised – on progress in implementing the framework decision dating back to 2004 on combating the sexual exploitation of children. In that report, as you may remember, I highlighted the fact that too many Member States have still not transposed that 2004 framework decision, dating back four years now, on the sexual exploitation of children.
We certainly created a useful instrument with the European Forum. The first experience with it in Germany, under the German Presidency, mainly related to Internet abuse and violent video games. The next European Forum on the rights of the child, which will take place under the Slovenian Presidency, will address other subjects, including in particular international adoptions. We will look at the situation and, as Mrs Angelilli hoped, we are also looking into practical ways of inviting children, children’s representatives, to take direct part in all European Forum meetings. You will understand that it is a delicate matter to invite children, including rather small children, to take part in those meetings, but that is the objective that has been decided and we will, therefore, fall in with that proposal from Parliament too.
We are developing a dedicated European website for children, written and presented in a simple way, which explains, for example, how to guard against the many safety threats to children in everyday life in a non-aggressive and non-shocking way; it explains how to, let us say, steer clear of such dangers. We have said very little about the Fundamental Rights Agency; one of my proposals was to make the rights of the child a priority under that Agency’s multiannual programme."@en1
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