Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-180"
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"en.20080507.15.3-180"2
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"Mr President, because I did not speak on human rights issues earlier, I will now try to come up with a few ideas. I would like to add something on human rights.
Let me close by answering Mr Howitt’s appeal to subscribe here to democracy promotion, as others also have been doing. This is, of course, our bread and butter. The Commission is recognised as the key institution in democracy promotion through our EOMs and other election support measures and through substantial support for democracy efforts of third countries and for international organisations like the UN, OSCE and the Council of Europe. Please rest assured that we take democracy promotion as seriously as anyone else in the European Union.
Human rights dialogues have become an increasingly important component of the EU’s activities to promote human rights worldwide. In line with the December 2001 Guidelines on Human Rights Dialogues, the European Union has established some 30 dialogues, and others – like, for instance, with Central Asia, Southern Caucasus, South Africa and possibly also some important Latin American partners – are also under consideration. Civil society, and notably Human Rights NGOs from the country concerned, are usually involved in the preparation of the meetings. We have also had very good, constructive results from some of our neighbourhood partners, and, we have to say, some more mixed results, like the recent dialogue with Russia. By the way, Russia was the first country where the Commission and the Council Secretariat had a briefing meeting with a restricted number of MEPs as a follow-up to the Valenciano Report, in order to meet your concerns regarding better coordination and information. I hope all parties involved find this beneficial.
The new European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights is now also being implemented at full speed, with two calls for proposals for Objective 1 – the difficult countries – and one for human rights defenders under our evaluation by the Commission services. Most of the Country-Based Support Schemes (CBSS) have been published and are now under evaluation by our delegations at country level, so I hope that by the summer most of the projects will start on the ground.
We are also actively integrating human rights and human security into all the relevant issues and policies. In the future, the new European security strategy will of course be there and I hope that we can establish a strong, human-centred approach to security, because human security aims exactly at encompassing human rights, security and development concerns. Both are there – freedom from fear and freedom from want.
I would like to specifically draw your attention to a few things. Human rights within the European Union have been mentioned by several speakers. There has not been a report by the European Parliament since 2004 on this subject. Yes, of course it is important to address problems, and we have two key instruments for doing so. One is the Council of Europe and, secondly, we now have a human rights agency, which has just been established in Vienna, to monitor the situation in the Member States and which will prepare yearly reports.
I also wanted to speak about something which has also mentioned – by a colleague who unfortunately has left – the protection of Christians in third countries. The European Union is strongly against discrimination affecting any religious group and our dialogue with third countries takes this up whenever appropriate and we do indeed try to clearly mention it.
I should also like to say a few words about the election observation missions. Many have taken the floor who have already been excellent chief observers. I can only re-emphasise the independence of EOMs, the coherence in their policies and among actors and particularly their professionalism. This will be the direction in which we would like to continue in the future.
Concerning women’s issues – of course, I am a woman so therefore you can imagine that I always take gender issues very seriously. I organised a women’s conference – very recently on 6 March – to which we will of course want to have a follow-up. There is mainstreaming and gender assessment in all actions. In the electoral observation guidelines there is a specific section on women. There is an important Security Council resolution, 1325, of the UN on women in conflict which is pushing for monitoring. We will soon also publish projects related to women’s development. I would just like to say that, in the Barroso Commission, in which I myself serve, a third are women. I think that it not always quota, but also quality, that should also be important. In this context, I would just like to say that in general the Commission promotes a healthy and reproductive life. This is important for women’s and children’s lives. This is one of the projects mentioned in Kenya but also of course covers the whole world and I think it is important to mention.
Another very specific point is the ICC – the International Criminal Court – for which there is strong support from the European Commission. We give EUR 4 million in the EIDHR 2008 Framework. The ICC clause is in our agreements. We have made démarches to have the ICC accepted with partners and there are international courts – if you think about Cambodia and many others – so we are really working very carefully there."@en1
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