Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-31-Speech-3-126"
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"en.20010131.6.3-126"2
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"Mr President, the violence in Colombia is a matter of great concern to Parliament. We have already passed a series of resolutions in support of the peace process in recent years. We hope for a genuine peace process, based on a consensus amongst the various parties to the conflict and civil society, including NGOs, farmers’ organisations and local communities. That is quite different from a plan amounting to financing fumigation and likely to exclude dialogue with the main players involved in the peace process.
Europe’s external action in Latin America has proved successful when Europe has conducted its own independent policy, promoting solutions and imbuing its cooperation programmes with its own political values regarding human rights, democracy and social cohesion. It is worth recalling events in Central America leading to the San José dialogue. On that occasion, the European Community as it then was supported a regional solution instead of taking sides in the East-West conflict. The European Union must adopt this distinctive approach and promote it at international level.
To this end, as I understand it, the Council and the Commission are prepared to support an independent autonomous approach and to fight against drugs. However, the fight against drugs goes beyond crop-spraying. Furthermore, collusion with the United States’ military plans is out of the question as far as we are concerned. Crop replacement has to be preceded by a dialogue with the peasant farmers, who must be offered other possibilities for development. A commitment to sustainable development is also called for: we are already aware that fumigation using
is harmful to the environment. Government cooperation is required to facilitate redistribution of the land so as to guarantee the farmers’ survival and put an end to mass migration. In short, a different plan is needed, one based on negotiation.
As regards Community cooperation, we are somewhat concerned that the EUR 105 million of aid planned may not be allocated to specific projects to combat poverty and promote human rights. We should like to receive more details concerning these various funds. In particular, we would like some guarantee that NGOs will cofinance the projects for which the funds are intended and will therefore be involved in their management This would also represent a guarantee for the future of Colombia and of this Plan Colombia.
According to the information available to me at present, there are currently no NGO cooperation programmes cofinanced by the Commission in Colombia. If indeed there are some, I would like details on them. What type of programmes are they? In short, we believe that the European Union must pursue its own policy in Colombia. This policy should involve genuine peace, dialogue, the elimination of poverty and prospects for sustainable development. No other route can lead to peace, especially not unpredictable military moves by the United States. The latter are certainly not acceptable to this House, and after what I have heard today, I trust they are not acceptable to the Council or to the Commission either. I believe it is important to make this clear. If we succeed in drawing up a sound peace plan for Colombia with the European Union acting independently, today will have been a good day."@en1
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"Fusarium oxysporum"1
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