Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-03-Speech-3-208"
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"en.20080903.23.3-208"2
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Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Flautre, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to express our gratitude for the job done by the parliamentary committees, and in particular by Mrs Flautre as chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
The report by Mrs Flautre deals more specifically with the mechanism for evaluating sanctions, asking the Council for an evaluation or an impact assessment of the EU’s sanctions policy. I want to point out that the Council is prepared to do this, and particularly to ensure that experiences are exchanged and national best practices for the application of restrictive measures are developed. Experience acquired in the design and implementation of measures in different contexts continually feeds into each political debate we have in the Council, and the Council also conducts in-depth discussions on the pertinence, nature and anticipated effectiveness of sanctions, relying on reports by European Union heads of mission and on observations sent in by the Member States.
On the nature of sanctions, we are therefore pleased that our views converge with those of the report and particularly that the preference is for targeted sanctions over generalised sanctions. We have noted that the report invites the Council and Commission to take a varied approach – which could be summed up as a carrot and stick approach – which indeed we believe is the approach that should be taken.
We also agree with the report’s analysis of the importance of international cooperation, which is what underpins credibility. We give particular priority to action taken within a United Nations framework. In the Council, we ensure that, based on United Nations resolutions and measures decided in the Security Council, there is alignment with the countries closest to the European Union. We also ensure that the issue of sanctions is raised in political dialogue meetings and the consultations on human rights which we hold with a number of target countries.
Finally, in this draft report, the European Parliament expresses the wish to be involved in all the stages of the process leading to the design, implementation and review of restrictive measures. The Council is fully aware of this and is delighted by the keen interest shown by the European Parliament in EU sanctions policy. That is why the Council is particularly keen to ensure Parliament is kept regularly informed of events affecting this domain.
To finish, I would like to applaud the European Parliament’s commitment in this area and encourage it to make the most of the parliamentary contacts it has with third countries to improve understanding of the European Union’s sanctions regime and explore the possibilities of coordinated action to promote human rights. It is for these reasons that I am so pleased with the report Mrs Flautre has just presented to us.
It is an important job, primarily because the relationship between the use of restrictive measures and human rights is a prominent issue, which attracted the attention of the various players on the international scene again recently – as you mentioned, Mrs Flautre. I feel it is worth mentioning that, within the framework of the common foreign and security policy, one of the aims of restrictive measures remains the foundation of democracy and the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Yet it is right to question, as we are doing and as you have done in your report, the possible impact of such measures on the fundamental rights of those individuals who are subject to them. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has drafted a concept paper on restrictive measures, entitled ‘Basic principles on the use of restrictive measures’, which mentions the attention paid to, I quote ‘full respect of human rights and the rule of law […] in full conformity with our obligations under international law’. Obviously this commitment remains at the heart of our priorities.
It should not be forgotten that the use of restrictive measures is not limited to human rights policy. It is one of many tools available to the foreign and security policy and there are other objectives, apart from defence and human rights, which concern peacekeeping, strengthening international security, protecting fundamental interests and reinforcing the security of the EU, or simply promoting international cooperation.
Sanctions should therefore – as you pointed out – be part of an integrated, comprehensive approach to a country, which in parallel should include political dialogue, incentives, conditionality and other foreign policy instruments and, from that point of view, I am delighted that the report converges with the Council’s idea that all its instruments, including restrictive measures, should be deployed flexibly.
You will understand that it is not easy to make a comparative analysis by looking at the different sanctions regimes and using the human rights situation in each country as the only benchmark. It is important not to take a regime of restrictive measures out of context, or when implementing these measures, to believe that everything will fall into place automatically.
When applying restrictive measures as part of the fight against terrorism, the measures are primarily aimed at preventing acts of terrorism, particularly anything that could contribute to the financing of these acts. The lists are well known; they are published, as are the measures they lead to.
One of the conditions for the continuation of this system rests on two pillars: the first is that these measures need to be credible, which means that great care must be taken with updating these lists so that they reflect reality. The second is respect for the rule of law, and consequently for a number of fundamental principles: the transparency of procedures, the possibility of taking legal action and the right to defence.
In this debate, – I am sorry to go on, but this is particularly topical – we naturally have to take note of the Court of Justice judgment given this morning which, from 3 December, cancels the effects of a Community regulation freezing funds in application of a Security Council resolution, against two plaintiffs because they could not find out why they had been included on terrorist lists. What we find is that the Court is not preventing the Council from taking new measures to freeze funds provided that those concerned can access information about why they have been targeted by these measures, either at the time the measure is taken or as soon as possible after the decision has been made.
We also note that the Court of Justice judgment specifies that the primacy of United Nations Security Council resolutions is not challenged and that it is therefore on this basis that the regulations will be modified before 3 December, having first informed Parliament."@en1
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