Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-12-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20040212.1.4-010"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, rapporteur, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his magnificent report on Afghanistan, a country which was in the headlines in autumn 2001.
The Taliban regime was destroyed at that time, but that involved a genuine civil war and consequently exiles, displaced persons and a series of destructions of the country’s structures. What is the situation today? Afghanistan is a country that needs not just political and social reconstruction but also economic reconstruction.
I would like to mention the report which the European Union's special representative in Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, presented to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy around a year ago. He had the experience of having been a United Nations delegate to Afghanistan and he described to us the lack of security in the majority of the territory.
Today Afghanistan has an extremely serious problem with the drugs trade. The trade is estimated, as Commissioner Patten has said, to stand at USD 2.5 million per year, which is equivalent to approximately half of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. We hear about 70 000 to 80 000 hectares of cultivation by the bosses who control the territory, cultivation which is not restricted to raw production, since there are also ‘refining’ plants so that the drug can be exported directly.
According to the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), two-thirds of the world’s heroin is produced in Afghanistan. This naturally creates serious problems in the country and, in this regard, I hope the support of the European Union and the international community can continue with a view to eradicating consumption as well, which, as the Commissioner has said, is the other face of the existing insecurity."@en1
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