Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-03-Speech-2-271"
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"en.20090203.20.2-271"2
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"Mr President, when Senator Obama became President Obama, we all heaved a sigh of relief. The axis of evil, regime change, the war on terror: European citizens yearn to see those euphemisms consigned to history, along with the people who invented them.
But breaking with the past and reverting to the rule of law take guts and grit, so I congratulate the new President. He was right to condemn waterboarding as torture, right to call a halt to the flawed military trials at Guantánamo Bay, and right to signal his determination to close the camp completely within a year. I welcome the assurance of the Council Presidency today that the US has now disowned all the squalid practices that have tarnished its Government over recent years, including torture in third countries and extraordinary rendition, in order to put an end to the axis of illegality.
However, Europe cannot stand back, shrug its shoulders and say that these things are for America alone to sort out. We lack the open debate and the collective change of will which American democracy allows. Yet, too often, Member States from our Union were complicit in what the Bush Administration did. If the 43
President taught us anything, it is this: that in the administration of international justice, the ‘go it alone’ mentality ends in a cul-de-sac of failure.
So the challenge of Guantánamo, the problem posed by 245 suspects floating outwith the justice system, is not an issue for America alone. It is a conundrum we must solve together. The United States must prosecute suspects, where sound evidence exists and in accordance with the rule of law. America must free those suspects against whom there is insufficient evidence and defend them if they are likely to face torture at home.
But what about those who are released, who pose no threat, but who have no wish to remain in a country that wrongly imprisoned them? If asked, should not Europe offer those few citizens the rights and freedoms that no other country will? We cannot forever balance the Council’s assertion that it is for individual Member States to decide with the Council’s stated desire for a coordinated European position. Europe has to speak with one voice and play its part in ending this affront to justice. Many of us have criticised America in the past for its failure to work with others. We were right to do so, but our help may now be sought and we would be wrong to say ‘no’."@en1
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