Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-249"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would nonetheless like to briefly respond to the speakers with some considerations, and perhaps with some more detailed information.
As I have already said, I enjoyed a very good relationship with most of the NGOs, and I also acknowledge that they have a specific role to play. Earlier, I heard Mrs Boumediene-Thiery use a rather subversive term – which is a great credit to you, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery – but we could have a fundamental difference of opinions. Personally speaking, as a democratically elected politician, I am not willing to give up my prerogative to assume political responsibility on behalf of the people. I have been elected, the people can therefore reject me, which is what I call responsibility, and I must also be accountable to the people – these are, essentially, my two duties. I am not therefore willing to let this prerogative be taken away from me because, when this system of political responsibility ceases to exist, we would no longer have a democracy, in other words. And that is something that I cannot accept.
I did want to bring up one particular subject – which Mr Sylla mentioned, I believe – that of discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, which is one of many forms of discrimination. The European Union was in favour of highlighting the many forms of discrimination that affect some classes of people. This concept is certainly present in the texts.
However, when it came to defining potential sources of these many forms of discrimination, it was not possible to include concepts that the European Union considers to be important, such as discrimination based on sexual orientation. This idea was firmly opposed by some countries, as you suspected. The only aspects that everyone found acceptable were the sources of discrimination listed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in other words, race, colour, sex, language, religion, political belief or any other belief, national or social origin, wealth, birth or any other situation.
What are we doing in terms of following up this conference? I shall conclude by reiterating my earlier point that it would be the task of each Member State to follow up the Durban Conference, but it has already been decided that the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights will primarily be responsible for providing this follow-up. Several measures must be implemented, particularly the creation of an anti-discrimination unit within the Office of the High Commissioner and the appointment of five highly-regarded independent experts, who will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the provisions contained in the action programme and the political declaration. These experts will be appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General.
Naturally, I wanted to provide you with this clarification, first of all because I was also keen to congratulate those speakers who made such relevant comments, and I wanted to tell them that their strong convictions have served as a significant driving force and support enabling us to defend the points of view that we expressed on your behalf in Durban.
First of all, I agree to an extent, as Mr Van Hecke said, I agree to an extent with him in believing we must ensure that we prepare very thoroughly for a conference of this kind. I think that, essentially, we have, to a certain degree, paid a heavy price for the fact that a number of shortfalls were perceived in the preparations for this conference. I believe, to use a term that you are familiar with, that there were still far too many ‘leftovers’ at Durban, which obviously made the task at hand much more complicated. I therefore think that this preparation is obviously extremely important.
My second comment in relation to this type of conference: I am not sure whether to want to draw up a document that provides a comprehensive list of every situation would not be a mistake, and whether or not, at the end of the day, this would adversely affect the substance of the final document. By this I mean that, if we had a more concise text, with a specific number of principles that can be generally applied, I feel that we would probably be able to produce a stronger text. And we can even question whether or not the European Union could perhaps at some point contemplate doing this, in other words, glean from the Durban Conference a basic framework, which would facilitate the roll-out of the Durban achievements in each Member State.
I have heard many people ask the question, ‘So, that was Durban – what comes next?’ Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you that what happens next depends in the main on the Member States. I believe that it was Mrs Boumediene-Thiery who said that if a State wants to apologise, present or express remorse or regret, at the end of the day, it is up to that State to know how far it can go.
Secondly, I think that each State can very easily put the finishing touches to or devise its own specific action programme to combat racism, based on what was done at Durban, drawing its inspiration from these principles and from what was agreed at Durban. I also listened earlier to the Commissioner very clearly saying that the Commission was also planning to take some very specific measures. I think that the Commission has already been working on this matter for some time. I therefore feel that there will be a follow-up, that there will be another conference after Durban if that is what we want. In fact, this comes down to the usual question of political will.
Naturally, I would also like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank all the speakers who have expressed their appreciation of my work, which is much too generous. I believe that I had the support of some extremely competent people from the Commission, Council, and of course from my own delegation. I was also able to count on all those representing the various European countries. I feel that it was logical to do the work that we did. I think that it was perfectly natural.
I would like to perhaps respond to a number of comments about what is lacking in the documents. Yes, they naturally lack a number of points. For example, why is there no mention at all of the caste system in the documents adopted at Durban? This is a particularly important subject for the European Union, I am aware of this, and what is more, I share this concern. As you know, the European Union is concerned about situations involving discrimination throughout the world; therefore it was natural that we also express this concern. We closely followed developments regarding this problem and we supported a paragraph put forward by Switzerland, discussing this problem. The text makes references to discrimination based on ancestry and occupation, which clearly describes types of discrimination, the helpless victims of which live in several countries around the world. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the European Union and other countries, particularly South America, it was not possible to reach an agreement with India on this paragraph. Since this conference was based on consensus, as you know, the text was therefore withdrawn, and this is something I regret. However, we must also remain realistic and realise that we cannot achieve everything.
One speaker quite rightly mentioned the problem of the death penalty. This is a subject that is of particular personal concern to me. As you know, the abolition of the death penalty is one of the European Union’s priorities. I believe that we are right to reiterate this, and we are endeavouring to use every possible opportunity we are given at international level to push forward the debate on this issue. This was the case at the Durban conference. The European Union supported a paragraph of the action programme referring to racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty. The United States strongly opposed this paragraph during the preparatory process, however, and several countries, particularly those in Asia, also rejected it and, without consensus, it was not possible to retain this text either. I am obviously giving these examples in order to convince you that your concerns were relayed and were expressed in Durban, but unfortunately we could not achieve everything.
I would like to briefly mention the behaviour of the NGOs throughout the conference. As stressed in the documents adopted at Durban, civil society, and NGOs therefore, have an important role to play in the fight against racism. That is why the NGO forum organised prior to the Intergovernmental Conference was particularly important for the European Union. In my view, this is also the reason why the European Commission funded most of those taking part in the forum. Unfortunately, although the forum provoked some interesting debates, I, myself, took part in a debate that I found extremely interesting, the forum followed a process that was, at times, dubious and, at others, totally undemocratic. Extremist organisations seem to have monopolised the discussion, which forced Member States to disregard the conclusions of the forum. Some NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and FIDH, also disassociated themselves from the forum’s outcome. Moreover, we must admit that the aggressive approach and disgraceful verbal abuse from some NGOs raises the question as to why the European Union and its Member States as well – my own country included – give their unconditional support to these organisations. I think that we must also discuss with the NGOs such issues as their accountability, their representativeness and the confines of their responsibilities."@en1
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