Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-11-Speech-2-249"
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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to be here today to witness this debate on the ninth EU Annual Report on Human Rights. This report covers the period from 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007 and was formally presented to the European Parliament on 26 November in Brussels.
We have also reinforced our position against torture within the context of the guidelines and continued to improve the implementation of the guidelines on children in armed conflicts and also on human rights defenders. This year, the EU has also taken a new initiative and developed a set of guidelines on the rights of the child which will in all likelihood be adopted by the Council at the end of this year.
The core of the report continues to be the EU’s activities in the area of the common foreign and security policy, dialogues on human rights with various countries and troika consultations. Information is given on the development of policies and actions in relation to 20 different thematic issues, including not only those areas in which the EU has adopted human rights guidelines, but also other thematic issues, such as women’s rights, children’s rights, the fight against racism and the trafficking of human beings.
The report includes an analysis of the EU’s activities in neighbouring countries and provides an overview of the EU’s activities in international organisations. I would remind you in this respect that the period analysed in this report coincides with the first year of activities of the Human Rights Council, with the European Union having actively contributed to the latter’s work.
Another priority for the EU in relation to human rights has, as in previous years, been the streamlining of human rights into all aspects of EU policies. I am thinking of the planning and execution of crisis management operations and missions under the European Security and Defence Policy and the assignment of dedicated human rights and gender advisers to missions. The mandates of the special representatives of the European Union have also now become concrete instructions in this area.
As in previous years, the ninth EU Annual Report on Human Rights 2007 is a genuinely joint report prepared by the Presidency, the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the human rights-related work of the European Union during the Finnish and German Presidencies. The report aims to illustrate how the common values on which the EU is based translate into concrete human rights-related activities in its bilateral relations with third countries, in multilateral fora and in relation to a number of thematic issues. A second objective of this report is to ensure transparency in the EU’s human rights-related activities and also to ensure the visibility of these multiple and extremely important activities.
I should now like to highlight the most striking general aspects of the EU’s policy on human rights during the period in question. These were as follows: implementation of the EU guidelines on human rights – as you know, we already have guidelines on torture, the death penalty, human rights defenders and children in armed conflict; the development of new more comprehensive EU guidelines on the rights of the child, initially focused on the issue of violence against children; the first year of functioning of the UN Human Rights Council; the conclusion of the institution building process of this new body and, finally, the mainstreaming of human rights into all aspects of EU policies, including crisis management in operations and missions of the European Security and Defence Policy.
Although the structure of this report largely follows the same format as last year, this year’s edition strives to provide additional focus on analysis in order to offer a more comprehensive and in-depth overview of the impact and effectiveness of EU action in the fields of human rights and democratisation. This focus on analysis stems from the suggestions made by the European Parliament contained in the Coveney report from April.
This report therefore presents the EU’s human rights-related activities from both thematic and country perspectives. This year two new sections have been added: one on the neighbourhood policy and the other on freedom of religion and belief. We wanted, in this way, to underline the importance we place on the fight against intolerance based on belief or religion.
The annual report includes comments on the resolution sponsored by the European Union on this subject during the 2006 session of the United Nations General Assembly. I have pleasure in informing you that this year we again sponsored a resolution on intolerance based on religion or belief which was adopted by consensus in the UN Third Committee.
In the Human Rights Council session which began yesterday, 10 December, in Geneva, another EU resolution on religious intolerance will be presented. This particularly aims to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. We hope that this resolution will also be adopted by consensus. The report also includes a more comprehensive section on the European Parliament’s activities to promote and protect human rights and democracy, particularly through resolutions, but also through hearings and debates organised in the Subcommittee on Human Rights, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Development and with representatives of third countries.
The European Parliament’s vital contribution to our joint efforts to promote and protect human rights is undeniable. The report also mentions the mechanisms developed within the EU to guarantee respect for and protection of human rights. Mention should be made in this respect of the establishment of the Agency for Fundamental Rights on 1 March of this year, replacing the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. The report highlights, among other activities, the steps taken to implement the EU guidelines on human rights.
I should like to start by mentioning the steps taken throughout this year to implement the guidelines on the death penalty. By cooperating with countries in all regions, the EU has given great impetus to its campaign against the death penalty. Throughout the reporting period, the EU took numerous steps on the death penalty, trying to convince countries to change their positions on this issue and also trying to save human lives. It was also in the context of these guidelines that we presented a declaration on the death penalty in 2006 to the United Nations General Assembly which led this year to the adoption of the resolution against the death penalty on 15 November."@en1
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