Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-008"
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"en.20060214.4.2-008"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the human rights and democracy clause has a long history within Parliament and is based on the assumption that civil and political rights and, in a broader sense, economic, social and cultural rights as well need to be at the heart of European Union policy.
Lastly, while we believe that the clause should be applied to all countries and all agreements, we also think that, in the case of countries covered by the new neighbourhood policy, one might consider signing agreements that go beyond the democracy clause, based on the sharing of common institutions for promoting democratic principles and human rights, on the example of the Council of Europe and regional agreements.
The clause began in the early 1990s with the Lomé Agreement and in 1990 itself was also applied to Argentina. Every year, in its annual report, the European Parliament calls for this clause to be given greater weight and urges the Council to grant Parliament a more important role in overseeing its implementation. Parliament’s requests have so far not been met with a satisfactory response. The clause has now been included in over 50 agreements and applies to over 120 countries. In that respect, I must stress the importance of the Cotonou Agreement signed with the ACP countries in June 2000, which enhanced the role of this clause.
The first point that I should like to address concerns the European Parliament. It has to give its assent before an agreement comes into force, but it is not called upon to give its opinion on initiating consultation or partly suspending an agreement. That lessens its institutional and, more generally, its political role.
That is why I consider it important to emphasise that Parliament is no longer prepared to give its assent to new international agreements that do not contain a human rights and democracy clause. Parliament maintains that it has to play a part in defining the negotiating mandate for new agreements with third countries and, above all, in drafting their political and human rights objectives. In addition, Parliament asks to be involved in the decision-making process for initiating consultation or suspending an agreement, or indeed for suspending any appropriate negative measures that have already been imposed on a country. Lastly, Parliament asks to be associated with the Association Councils and their subcommittees on human rights and hopes that its interparliamentary delegations can play an enhanced role in that respect, by regularly including debates on the democracy clause on their meeting agendas.
Another point that I should like to address concerns the reciprocity between the European Union and third countries, which so far has not been fully exploited. I also believe that the clause should be applied in relation to the violation under discussion and not in relation to the country under discussion.
It is also necessary to extend the clause to all new agreements between the European Union and third countries, both industrialised and developing, including sectoral agreements and commercial, technical or financial aid, along the lines of what has been done for the ACP countries.
Human rights issues need to be systematically included on Association Council agendas. To that end, we consider that the heads of the Commission’s external delegations in third countries must play an enhanced role and we call for country-by-country multiannual strategy documents to be drawn up and to be debated on a regular basis.
A structured dialogue must be established between the Association Council and its subcommittee on human rights. We call for the general establishment of subcommittees on human rights, with a mandate to review compliance with and the application and implementation of the democracy clause, and to propose specific positive actions to improve democracy and human rights. It is important to underline that we call for these subcommittees to include and to consult representatives of parliaments and of organisations representing civil society.
Then there is a further extremely important aspect. This resolution recognises that the need for unanimity within the Council in order to initiate a consultation procedure has made it more difficult to apply the clause. We therefore call for the abolition of this unanimity requirement and, in that respect, for the revision of Article 300(2) of the EC Treaty, which limits the role of the European Parliament in such cases."@en1
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