Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-066"
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"en.20001025.3.3-066"2
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"Mr President, some of us have been involved for many years in trying to overcome the scourge of anti-personnel landmines. It is an issue that has caught the public imagination in many of our countries. Governments have expressed their commitment and pledged large sums of money. NGOs have sprouted up in response to the need and yet, some four years after the first United Nation's landmine conference in Geneva and over a year after the entry into force of the Ottawa Convention, we must recognise that many countries and thousands of people, usually in the poorest regions of the world, are still terribly afflicted by anti-personnel landmines and unexploded munitions.
Why is progress so slow? It seems to me that the problems are threefold. Firstly, we need to be focused in our aims. The anti-personnel landmine campaign should not be used as an opportunity to attack western governments, particularly the United States, western military establishments, or western industry. For the most part, western governments are not the problem but part of the solution. We should concentrate our political attention on the real culprits: warring factions and irresponsible governments who have shown no concern about civil populations and who use anti-personnel landmines as indiscriminate weapons of terror.
More importantly, practical mine action should focus on the priorities: making areas safe where the suspected presence of mines is a bar to resumption of normal life and economic development, and assistance to mine victims. Secondly, the international community needs to improve the coordination of its efforts both at the global level and particularly within the afflicted countries. The fact is we still do not know the true extent of landmine infestation and we do not know how effective efforts to clear mines have been. A rapid stocktaking exercise needs to be conducted in each of the most afflicted countries so that we can see more clearly what needs to be done.
Thirdly, we need to ensure that money is spent well. I take some pride in the fact that the European Commission is the world's largest supporter of mine action. This is an area where, in view of the European Union's capacity for coordination of efforts by many countries, an application of large resources to the problem should be more effective. There are many reasons why the rhetoric has not been matched by reality. In a way, the landmine case characterises the wider failure of the Commission to make effective use of the resources at its disposal. The Commissioner for external relations has previously recognised that the Commission's external aid programmes have been an embarrassment. The Commission needs to improve both the quality of its programmes and their speed of implementation. Things are beginning to move in the right direction under Mr Patten's leadership.
The Commission communication and the regulation on anti-personnel landmines are very useful documents, but they omit two key elements, which Parliament's amendments seek to correct. Multiannual funding for mine action must be concentrated on a single budget line and there must be a properly resourced unit within the Commission, specifically responsible not just for the policy framework but also for the planning and implementation of mine action, including contracts. Top-level commitment, proper direction and management with responsibility are the keys to the effective use of resources. Let us have no more gestures but real action and tangible results."@en1
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