Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-01-19-Speech-2-121"
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"en.20100119.6.2-121"2
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"Madam President, once again, an important and wide-ranging debate on an area of the world where we have, for some years, had a focus. I was reflecting on the fact that, over the period 2007-2010, EUR 100 million have been spent by the Commission in support and a similar amount will be spent in the future but nonetheless, an area where we have reflected again on the importance of sustainable and coordinated effort, as many Members have pointed out.
So for me, this has been a very useful debate, I am very grateful, because again it helps me in my mind to set the agenda of the issues that I will take to the Foreign Affairs Council as we debate this and then on to London engaging, as I have indicated, with the government on all the elements where we can provide continuing support to develop the country economically, to deal with counter terrorism, to deal with the issues of support from the neighbourhood, too.
I think a final point is to recognise the plight of the hostages which has been raised a number of times: six hostages, one British, five German including some very young children with the German family who have been taken hostage. I know that Minister Westerwelle, the German Foreign Minister, was recently in Yemen. He and I spoke about it this week, and our thoughts will always go to the hostages who are suffering at the present time. We will take all of these issues into the meeting in London and I am very grateful again to honourable Members for raising these important matters.
I think that Mrs Salafranca’s comments at the beginning have been picked up and reflected again in a number of contributions about how we can make sure that our coordination is effective in terms of security, in terms of the political and economic coming together to address the concerns that this nation faces. Mrs Giannakou raised the question of dwindling water and dwindling oil; I think Yemen is the first country that is expected to run out of water by about 2015, something which we have to see as a real and significant challenge.
In order to address this, we have to look at an integrated approach; a number of Members raised the question of what is the strategy which we should pursue. Let me try and outline a few of the key elements of that: first of all, the issues of security and counter terrorism. As we approach the London meeting, we need to collaborate effectively on this, a point raised by a number of Members: we need to get the package of assistance together and focus on the work that we are already undertaking, for example, in the Atalanta mission off the coast and the importance of that.
The issue of improving maritime surveillance is being looked at right now; it was the subject of a discussion I had recently with the Spanish Defence Minister to see what more can be done in order to coordinate better and more effectively to deal with maritime security, bearing in mind the length of coast and the amount of space that have to be covered.
I think, too, that we have described this comprehensive approach of how to link together the different elements and engage the neighbours of Yemen. Mrs Brantner, you raised particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council. I agree: a very significant part of how we try and address this area is to work collaboratively with the neighbours around the region and again the London meeting will, I hope, bring together the key Member States from around the area who can help us.
The London meeting is that opportunity, of course, to pull together our thinking and to do so with the United States and with others. We are engaging with the United States. It is not true to say that their approach is confined to counterterrorism: they also support and are fully on board with what we describe as our ‘root causes’ approach, again the mixture of things which we need to do to ensure that we support this country.
To answer the specific point on security, the EU Home Affairs informal meeting is taking place in Spain this weekend. I understand the American counterpart will be there in order to have discussions on the points which Members have raised.
I agree with the comment that this is not a Christmas tree or wish list. We have to be very selective about what we believe we can do to make a difference; helping Yemen to have the type of dialogue it needs to have internally in order to support the people and to try and resolve some of the conflicts which occur in that country is going to be just as significant in my view as anything else we do.
Asked about finding the right kind of support, the stability instruments too, can be used appropriately, I think, to provide the level of support, but this is no substitute, and could never substitute, for trying to support the government to have the internal dialogue that only they can have. Partners have to engage in Yemen to be able to address the problems which are of greatest significance for that."@en1
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