Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-15-Speech-3-153"
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"en.20090715.10.3-153"2
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"Mr President, I have listened very attentively to the different assessments and views expressed. This is, as has been pointed out, a most important debate on a most important subject.
I come from a country where 1% of our citizens have a background in Iran. They move back and forth. We have consular issues that are of a multitude that is difficult to fathom. We need to be prepared to engage, to help individuals in different cases, without believing that that is going to sort out everything at once.
We have the nuclear dossier that has been alluded to. There might be others who believe there are far more simple solutions to that. I do not think there is any solution if we do not engage in a true diplomatic dialogue on that. Those are other issues that we need to engage on.
This is obviously going to be more demanding and more difficult in the circumstances that we now have, there is no question about that, and I think the discussion in the Committee on Foreign Affairs last week highlighted some of the difficult choices and some of the difficult judgements that we have to make in not only the coming weeks, but months – but not very much longer than that. Here we must engage – you, us in the Council and us as Europeans – with other significant international actors, not only with Americans with a new and good approach by the Obama Administration, but also engage with others – the UN Security Council, Russia, China, and with the wider world community. It is only then that we can hope to be able to start resolving not only the immediate issues, but also the other issues that need to be addressed.
I am grateful for this debate. I think it has highlighted the clear unanimity that we have when it comes to defending our values, but it has also highlighted some of the difficult choices and balancing acts that we have to engage in in the months and years ahead. We know what we want to achieve; we must also seek to achieve it. But do not think it is going to be easy. I can assure you that the Council will continue to be very much engaged with all aspects of this particular dossier.
I think it can fairly be said that we stand united in our assessment of what has been happening, what we have seen on the television screens and, more importantly, what we have heard from the people who know even more than what can be seen on the television screens.
I would like to take issue with someone who said we have not been clear enough. If you make a comparison with what the European Union has said, and what every other significant world body of actors has said, there is no question that we are the ones that have been the most clear, the most consistent, the strongest in the words that we have used.
We would have wished those words to have more of an effect than they already have, but that is often the case. But, while words are, nevertheless, important – no question about that – we are discussing primarily what has been happening in Iran since the election on 12 June.
I think it is important also to focus on what we saw on the television screens before 12 June, because that was suddenly a somewhat different Iran from the one we were used to. There was an element within the boundaries of the regime, certainly, of vitality, an element of plurality, an obvious desire for change, for openness, for reform. Whether that represented the majority of Iranians or not is very difficult to judge from the outside, but that it was significant is testified not least by the force of the crackdown that we saw after 12 June. So in condemning what we have seen after, we should not forget what we saw before and the long-term significance of that.
I think we are united in what we say and what we think. Mr Saryusz-Wolski, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mr Mauro: virtually the same, if we look at what we are assessing. But the most difficult thing is not what we say; the most difficult thing is what we do faced with this situation. I think we must then operate along two lines.
The first one is fairly obvious. The European Union must be the clear voice for human rights and democracy wherever and under whatever circumstances. There might be other factors coming into consideration of policy as well, but it should not dilute in any way from the consistency of our defence for human rights. So we must condemn the killings, the use of the death sentence. We must call for the release of those detained. We must be clear in our call for full respect for the freedom and the rights that are there for every human being in our world.
Secondly – and I think here there might be some dissent – we must also be prepared to engage. I say that, recognising that that is a far more difficult policy than just to stand back, do nothing or try to isolate: that is easy; to engage is difficult. Mr Kelam alluded to some of the historical experience we have, with the balancing act that that entails. But the fact that we have a certain amount of historical experience in Europe – reflected not the least here – perhaps makes it possible for us to venture along that particular road.
We should never believe that just a diplomatic dialogue can sort out every issue that has been addressed here: it cannot. Other factors will come in to that particular equation. But neither should we forget that there are some issues that we have a duty to seek to resolve through diplomatic dialogue. I am thinking of the individuals employed at the British Embassy, or the French student and others, that we must deal with now in a dialogue."@en1
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