Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-232"
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"en.20011002.9.2-232"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, there are many people who actually wondered about the usefulness of the Durban Conference. Yet the international community must exist, and it must come together to discuss the issues, even if such discussions sometimes reveal contradictory interests, and I do not believe that walking out is necessarily a solution. At least the Durban Conference had the advantage of bringing together the international community on an issue which is undeniably a subject of common concern to all countries, because racism is a scourge of worldwide proportions, and no country is free from racism or discrimination in one form or another. This conference therefore provided an opportunity to take stock, to make a diagnosis, and what would be the point of such a diagnosis, if there were no treatment?
Finally, and I should like to end on this point, I would simply draw attention to the inadequacy of our Parliament’s representation. This point will feature in the joint resolution. Briefly, the European Union is represented by the President-in-Office of the Council. The European Community is represented, as an observer, by both the Commission and Parliament. That is undoubtedly something to think about if we want the European Parliament to play a better role at international conferences, a role other than that of joint observer together with the Commission. Anyway, this point raises the issue of the renegotiation of the Institutional Agreement of 5 July 2000. You will find this proposal again in the joint resolution which will very shortly be put to the vote in this House.
What could we expect from the Durban Conference? I do not yet know, Mr Michel, whether it will constitute a success in the long term. What we do know is how it failed, in other words the fact that there was no final declaration, no confirmation of a worldwide willingness to combat racism and to find adequate means of doing so. The objective of the Durban Conference was to compile a whole series of worldwide instruments, to draw up a road map, to work out new strategies for combating racism, and action programmes – which you, Minister, have described – which states can exploit, subject to the subsidiarity which is the key to the issue of combating racism and discrimination.
What lessons can we learn from this? It seems to me that we have been able to avoid falling into three traps.
The first, which you have already mentioned, is the issue of the Middle East. Any reasonable person knows that the problems of the Middle East would never have been solved at Durban. Attempts were made to turn this into a major issue, but I think that this trap was, fortunately, avoided.
The second trap is the issue of reparations. Some people would have liked reparations to be the main subject of the debate. This was sheer perverseness, if not perversion, because it meant that there was a risk that development aid would be reduced to a form of reparations. As Mr Michel has quite rightly emphasised, we are all aware of the burden of history borne by certain parties. We must work towards solidarity between human beings rather than perpetual culpability, which in financial terms would have to come to an end one day, because any reparations expressed in terms of money would, of course, be finally paid off sooner or later.
Finally, the third trap that was avoided was the victim list. Some people wanted a list to be drawn up. In our case that would have included the Roma, Sintis and Dalits. If one draws up a list of victims, of course, there is a risk that the next thing that will be drawn up is a hierarchy of victims, and some may be regarded as being more victims than others, which seems to me to be completely unproductive as far as racism and discrimination are concerned.
In effect, therefore, the declaration is acceptable and I would like to thank Mr Michel, officially, for the essential role that he played as mediator, intercessor and – if I can risk a neologism – explainer. As you have emphasised so well, Mr Michel, Europe was able to make its full influence felt – and I do not believe that it did so only after the departure of the United States – because you showed great personal commitment, and because Europe consisted not only of fifteen countries, but of thirteen others as well. In other words a large part of the human race was giving its mind to this subject.
As the Commissioner has said, some of the NGOs made themselves look ridiculous. This raises the issue of how representative they actually are. Fortunately, essential partners such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch disassociated themselves from the final declaration, but perhaps it will be necessary to sort out the assistance that we are able to give to the NGOs, many of which, over there, have lost all sense of responsibility to say the least.
We are very mindful, Minister, of the practical side. The European Union is perhaps not at the bottom of the league table when it comes to combating racism and discrimination, but there is still a great deal to be done. Let us therefore exploit those 225 articles to find means of action that we can put into practice."@en1
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