Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-064"
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"en.20001025.3.3-064"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know what the consequences of anti-personnel mines are, even if there may often be important military justifications for them in individual cases. They result in immeasurable suffering, especially among civilians and children. But they also often destroy countries' long-term development potential by contaminating entire regions. For this reason it is extremely positive that the Commission and the European Union are tackling this subject as a whole and wish to ensure that a coordinated policy is adopted in this area. Our question to the Commission is intended to encourage it to continue down this path and to strengthen this initiative still further.
I say this because we do indeed need coordination between the efforts of Europe and other international players, areas benefiting from development funds or actions directly administered by the Commission. Proper mine-clearance equipment therefore needs to be arranged and we need to finance research work on detection and clearance, and on equipment that is simple to use on the ground, which is particularly helpful for developing countries. There is also great potential for coordination in relation to personnel deployment, by which I mean both military personnel and civilians. My committee also suggests that you should consider seeking special deployment arrangements in cooperation with Eurocorps, making it possible for Europe to take the lead here. We also certainly need to designate priority areas for mine clearance so as to create special focal points.
Not all countries have yet signed the international conventions, nor have they been ratified by all countries, for a wide variety of reasons. I believe that we therefore need to wage a campaign to make those in positions of political responsibility weigh up what the military benefit of mines is and what the consequences are for the people and the region. By weighing things up in this way they will realise that arms of this kind should no longer be used and that we should help these countries to find political alternatives to using such mines. I also believe that there must be a proper political framework in these regions so as to give such governments the political power to escape from this vicious circle, which means that, ostensibly, in trying to provide protection for themselves they ultimately harm their own population in the long term. I must therefore encourage the Commission to regard this not just as a technical starting point for providing some kind of financial support, but also as an important opportunity to create a political framework with a view to securing an improvement here."@en1
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