Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-309"
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"en.20051116.21.3-309"2
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".
Mr President, you could say that, here in this House, the weapons come out at night. On our order of business we find three reports: Mr Romeva í Rueda’s on arms exports, Mr Kristovskis’ on weapons of mass destruction, and Mr Wuermeling’s on the European military equipment market. There is plenty of explosive material in all three of them and they are interconnected.
My group takes a generally positive view of the report on arms exports, even though there is still room in it for improvements, such as more precise criteria, and even though considerations of peace policy of course make an outright ban on arms exports preferable from my point of view. Let us not forget that the production, export and deployment of weapons go together and that there is no war without them. Arms exports put peace at risk, and so it is all the more important that the code of conduct be at last made legally binding, which is what the report calls for, and which everyone here in this House would evidently welcome.
Mr Romeva has earned our gratitude by accepting an amendment from my group, which makes it possible for the code to be made legally binding also with regard to goods for dual use. The European Armaments Agency, which has been in existence for a year now, is seen by armaments experts as not only promoting the export of weapons, but also as making monitoring and control that much more difficult, and that is why our amendment moves that this agency, which is claimed to be to do with defence, be abolished. I would like to appeal in particular to my fellow Members from the Socialist and Green Groups in this House to join with the Left in bringing about the replacement of the Armaments Agency by an agency for the control of arms exports.
The Kristovskis report presents us with quite different issues. It was actually meant to discuss the means whereby the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction might be combated, but what we have before us is a fire report, which views the Iraq war – a crime in international law – in a positive light. I appeal to the House not to support this report – and not merely to abstain from voting, which is what we have just heard the Social Democrats recommending and not to endorse the amendments calling for a tougher line on Iran from the Europe of the Nations Group, to which Mr Kristovskis belongs.
I appeal to the conservatives in this House not to endorse an interpretation according to which Iran, where weapons of mass destruction are concerned has, for the past 17 years, done nothing but sown and reaped mistrust; that is just so not true. The report appears to regard the war on Iraq as a blueprint for an attack on Iran, even though now not even the former Secretary of State Colin Powell asserts that Iraq actually possessed weapons of mass destruction at the time and is now ashamed of his performance before the UN Security Council.
When it comes to the West’s weapons of mass destruction, the report is hypocritical in the manner customary in this House. We therefore propose that the US nuclear weapons be required to be removed from European soil, that the French and British nuclear weapons be mothballed, and that Germany should once and for all renounce its potential for enriching uranium in its research reactor at Garching.
Turning to the last of the reports, I have to say to Mr Wuermeling that he asserts not only that our industry is not competitive on the international stage, but also, and at the same time, that there was no connection between the reports. If competition is what it is all about, then that applies also to competition in export markets and that is why this Article 296 must go. I regard this report on the military equipment industry as very frank and honest. It is about close cooperation with NATO and the USA, and our group will be voting ‘no’ to this report too."@en1
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