Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-15-Speech-3-134"
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"en.20090715.10.3-134"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I was going to start my first speech to this plenary by welcoming the fact that the debate on the situation in Iran was not brought on by Iran’s prominence in the media, which has been superseded in turn by China, Honduras, the G20, etc.
Unfortunately, the recent executions of Sunni militants in Iran have brought the country and its human rights violations back to the front page of the newspapers. However, I do not think that it should be what is in the news that inspires what is on Parliament’s agenda in terms of external policy, but rather Parliament’s own sense of responsibility and its considered and coherent response, in line with its growing role in the European Union’s external policy, especially in the field of human rights.
This role, Mr President, involves monitoring the consistent use of all the instruments that the European Union has in this field and, in the case of Iran, we should not keep the dialogue on nuclear weapons entirely separate from the complete absence of political dialogue on human rights.
Structured dialogue on human rights has been suspended since 2004. We do not have a cooperation and trade agreement on which to hang a democratic clause, we have not managed to send an electoral observation mission, and the funds of the Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights are minute.
In Parliament and in the whole of the European Union we need to be more effective in using the instruments that we have available to us and that we have equipped ourselves with. Some in this very House and in the Iranian opposition have called for relations with the Iranian regime to be completely broken off and for the new government not to be recognised.
We strongly condemn the political repression and the stifling of freedom of expression in Iran, but we do not think that we should relinquish being a force in the defence and protection of human rights, democracy and the fight against poverty in the world. In order to do this, Mr President, we need dialogue, negotiation and diplomacy, and we need to seek out common interests and build an alliance of civilisations. I call on the Presidency of the Council to do this."@en1
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