Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-29-Speech-3-073"
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"en.20030129.3.3-073"2
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". – Mr President, just three years ago we all hoped that the Korean peninsular could look forward to a much better future. North Korea, traditionally isolated from just about every other country and consistently hostile to South Korea, had for some years been in very severe economic difficulties and eventually Pyongyang was forced to call upon the international community for assistance with food and medical supplies and for help in tackling the effects of a series of disastrous floods.
The development crisis therefore calls for common efforts by the main partners to find a diplomatic solution which can satisfy the demands of the international community, including the European Union, that North Korea must return to conformity with the non-proliferation treaty and which also gives North Korea the assurance that it will not be attacked by the United States. Plainly, if the international community is once again willing to help North Korea to address its enormous internal problems of shortages of energy, food and all other basic needs, this could also assist to get the country out of the crisis. But it is also clear that the European Union is not a major participant in the affairs of that region. We are of course a significant participant; we have provided nearly 300 million euros in different types of aid to the DPRK since the mid-1990s. Our most significant contribution politically is our participation in the KEDO, where we are board members together with the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and contribute 20 million euros annually. The European Union has also consistently been involved as a humanitarian donor – a role that was symbolised most recently by the 9.5 million ECU emergency food aid package for nursing mothers. This is assisted and delivered through the World Food Programme, as much of our humanitarian food assistance has been over the years, and the conditions for doing this are very clearly spelt out in a way that creates very tight monitoring procedures.
The European Union, for this and other reasons, has some credibility vis-à-vis the DPRK. We can consequently raise the question of whether the European Union can find an effective role in persuading the DPRK to see reason and back down from its current threatening posture and in helping to promote a diplomatic solution, particularly in a way that helps the United States and the DPRK to get back to dialogue and negotiations. Those were among the issues discussed at the General Affairs and External Relations Council last Monday, when foreign ministers decided to give a mandate to the Presidency to organise a high level visit to the DPRK. The timing, composition of the delegation and modalities are to be decided later and preparations for such a visit can now be undertaken. A clear condition, however, is that the delegation must be received by Chairman Kim Jong-il. Naturally, in our contact with the DPRK, we will not lose sight of the need for that country to address the human rights abuses that also add to the problem of the dialogue.
I can report that our South Korean friends have pressed strongly for an EU initiative and there has been general encouragement from other partners. The timing of such a visit must however be decided only after careful consultation with the partners concerned and when we are certain that our delegation will be received at the highest level.
Plainly, we also need to prevent a wedge from being driven between the efforts of the international community to counter the recent DPRK decisions. Further contact may therefore be needed with our closest allies and the United States in this case in particular.
As the situation develops, the Commission will keep Parliament regularly informed. In the meantime, we hope for the continued and valued support of Parliament in our efforts to foster temperate and constructive attitudes on all sides. I would end by saying that the world is not in acute need of more conflicts.
The international community responded and, in the wake of that, the mood of the regime in Pyongyang seemed to soften, raising the prospect of some change, however slow. In South Korea, the election of Kim Dae-jung as president in the late 1990s meant that the economic crisis there was tackled effectively and also resulted in efforts to implement the sunshine policy of trying to achieve normalisation of relations with North Korea.
The summit meeting in Pyongyang in 2000 between President Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong-il encouraged hopes of further constructive developments. Against that background, the majority of our Member States who had not already done so established or restored diplomatic links with North Korea and agreed to increase assistance, with a promise of more, if North Korea continued its cautious opening to the outside world.
The high level EU visit led by Prime Minister Goran Persson to Pyongyang in May 2001 was regarded as a further important step that reinforced our nascent dialogue concerning, inter alia, human rights, and brought from North Korea a promise of a continued moratorium on missile testing.
Since then, however, progress has not been so evident. Political level contact between North Korea and South Korea continued, as did family reunions and business contacts, but the promised second summit did not take place. Hopes of reconciliation are kept alive, but the patrol boat clash last summer shows how fragile those hopes are.
With the visit of Prime Minster Koizumi to Pyongyang last August, Japan also took a major step forward in opening up dialogue about normalising relations, nearly sixty years after the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea. But the admission by Chairman Kim Jong-il that over the years Japanese citizens had been kidnapped and that, tragically, some of the abducted people had died in North Korea understandably caused emotional reactions in Japan.
All that has generated justified concern, but it is the deterioration in the relationship with the United States that has generated most worry. The initial determination of the Bush administration not to follow the policies of President Clinton in relations with North Korea fed Pyongyang's suspicions that the United States was implacably hostile. The antagonisms have obviously been increased by the discovery last November that North Korea has been carrying out a covert programme of uranium enrichment in violation of the engagements it undertook in 1994 under the agreed framework, when the Korean Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) was set up to ensure that nuclear energy supplies to the DPRK under international supervision reduced the risk of war.
We all, I am sure, share anxiety about the developments over the past two months. North Korea is now the only country ever to have left the non-proliferation treaty. It expelled the IAEA inspectors and said it was restarting plutonium production at Yongbyong. Clearly, if North Korea begins to process significant quantities of plutonium for military use, the situation would deteriorate quickly and seriously. That reality is understood by all our partners and, of course, not least, the United States.
This is not however just an issue between the DPRK and the United States. It is a regional issue which carries grave risks for both Korea and Japan. It is also a crisis with global impact in terms of the non-proliferation worries which it raises. Clearly, if the situation worsens, there are likely to be adverse economic effects on the global economy including the European Union."@en1
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