Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-484"
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"en.20101215.27.3-484"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, on Friday we celebrated International Human Rights Day. This year’s theme highlighted the work of individuals and organisations worldwide who fight human rights violations, specifically discrimination.
First of all, the need for Europe to continue to speak up for human rights on the global stage. We are working to strengthen our action at the United Nations and to resist attempts to dilute universal standards, the basis of our action. We need to find innovative ways of working with third-country partners to promote our shared values, as we have done successfully in the UN General Assembly vote on the death penalty resolution. We are also investing to ensure that our own record stands up to scrutiny.
Second, we need to tailor our approach to individual situations. That means establishing local human rights strategies for each country, reviewing our priorities and the most effective use of our assorted tools, for example by sharing experiences on child protection on the Internet or how best to tackle child labour.
Third and finally, human rights should be visibly at the centre of EU external action. That means working human rights into the activities of all parts of the External Action Service, as well as the whole range of EU external action: trade, development, CSDP and so on, and at all levels. That will be built into the structure at headquarters as well as throughout our delegations in order to be able to monitor the human rights situation and promote an effective realisation of EU human rights policy goals.
Human rights are the core of our EU identity and they go to the heart of what we do around the world. We have developed strong sets of mechanisms for promoting these values in different contexts with different partners; in the multilateral context and through support for civil society; funding specific human rights projects in over one hundred countries. Nearly ten years on from the very first EU communication on human rights, and with the establishment of the new service, I want to ensure our human rights policy is effective, innovative and targeted: the silver thread that runs through all of our external action and a gold standard for our foreign policy.
That is why I particularly welcome today the contribution in this report and I would also end by congratulating Guillermo Fariñas on the award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Over this past year I have met Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on Iran and frontline award winner, Afghanistan’s human rights commissioner for women Dr Soria Sabhrang, and other human rights defenders across the world and I will continue to do so.
As I have expressed previously, I fully expect my colleagues in Brussels and the heads of our EU delegations to do the same.
Six months ago I stood before you to present a first vision of how the European Union should conduct its policy on human rights. Today I want to set out how work has been proceeding since then and how I see the way ahead now with the support of the European External Action Service.
But first of all I am very grateful to Dr Andrikienė for her report which responds to the EU’s annual report on human rights and sets out the European Parliament’s vision for how we can make our approach to human rights in the European Union more effective. This is an ambition which I strongly share. The range of EU action and challenges we face are well reflected in the report before the House today: attacks on human rights defenders, sexual violence, use of new technologies to curb freedom of expression, to name but a few. I want to pay tribute to Dr Andrikienė for bringing together more than 400 amendments in this impressive, informative and extremely useful report.
The report covers a lot of ground and I want to pick up three important developments of recent months. First and foremost, the EU has been working hard to advance the cause of human rights on the multilateral stage.
In a successful session of the UN Human Rights Council, the European Union held a common position on potentially divisive resolutions concerning the Gaza flotilla and the Goldstone report. At the General Assembly Third Committee, the EU also achieved its chief objectives: resolutions on Burma, DPRK and the death penalty were all passed with increased majorities – as was the Canadian resolution on Iran – and the EU resolution on eliminating religious intolerance again met with consensus.
Secondly, as announced in June, work has begun on a review of EU human rights policy. It has been an inclusive process for which I sought input from Member States’ parliamentarians, notably Ms Hautala and the Subcommittee on Human Rights, as well as civil society NGOs and academics. I will be asking the service and my senior team in the months ahead to consider the key themes arising from these consultations and how best we can put them into practice. I will count on Parliament’s continued support in this endeavour.
Third, work has begun on streamlining the patchwork of policies which have grown up over the past ten years and which make up the EU's human rights policy guidelines: toolkits, other instruments, the guidelines we have got for promoting and protecting human rights. There are good reasons why policy has grown in such an organic way, but it seems like a good time to take stock and to move on and, for that ongoing work on the review, I see three lines of action."@en1
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