Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-06-Speech-3-294"
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"Madam President, I would like to express the appreciation of the Council for the work of the rapporteur, Mr Obiols i Germà, and Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights. Mr Obiols i Germà, you have been a tireless and valuable partner in our collective work on human rights issues throughout this parliamentary term.
As far as dialogues and consultations with third countries are concerned, the EU will make every effort to ensure that these instruments become ever more effective tools for the implementation of our human rights policy. We have in particular agreed to hold local dialogues with five Latin American countries – Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Mexico – and will continue to establish dialogues with the remaining central Asian countries.
I would like to say a few words about the 27th EU-China human rights dialogue to take place on 14 May in Prague. It is important to ensure that our dialogues are as productive as possible and that they deliver substantive results. The EU-China human rights dialogue is the longest-standing dialogue. It needs to be able to adapt and reflect progress made in the way we address human rights issues. Both of our institutions are following closely developments in China. Various events scheduled throughout this year will enable us to maintain a close channel of communication with our Chinese counterparts. This dialogue is valuable. We look forward to seeing increasingly tangible results from these talks.
To conclude, I would like to underline that promotion of and respect for human rights across the world is one of our main priorities in external policy. Through the use of démarches and statements, and through our various political dialogues and crisis management operations, the EU is working for improved respect for human rights worldwide. To achieve results, we have to adopt a consistent approach. This Parliament has been at the forefront in pushing for greater consistency at all levels and we very much welcome this.
I am very grateful in general for the work of this Parliament and its support on human rights issues. The value of the Sakharov Prize as an instrument for the promotion of our shared values is widely recognised. We will continue to review the extent to which the instruments of human rights clauses, sanctions and dialogue – all of which have been scrutinised extensively by this Parliament – can play an effective role as part of our overall external policy, whilst ensuring the highest standards of respect for human rights.
Your report offers us an opportunity to scrutinise the Union’s overall policy in the field of human rights. We are very well aware of the challenges we continue to face in this area. The strengthening of relations between the EU institutions helps us face these challenges together. The report provides us with a valuable tool to look back at what has been achieved.
The European Parliament report underlines the relevance of the European Union Annual Report on Human Rights. Our attempt to make the report more interesting, readable and useful has been partly successful, but there is clearly room for further improvement. We will continue to work on this. Your report will certainly help us in our reflections on how to increase coherence generally across the EU’s human rights policies. Discussions are under way on this issue and I would like to assure you that, whatever the outcome of these discussions, we will make every effort to bring greater visibility to our work on human rights issues. This could be through more effective use of web sources or by better publicising the annual report.
You have also underlined that more attention needs to be given to the role of the UN in this area. We have continued to undertake coordinated efforts in international fora, most particularly the UN Human Rights Council, as recommended in the Andrikienė report, as well as at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. Efforts are being made to improve our efforts at outreach in an increasingly difficult environment. This is not easy, but I would like to draw your attention to a number of successes.
We have worked hard to ensure that the UN Human Rights Council gains greater credibility. 2009 can be regarded as a key test year for the functioning of the Human Rights Council. The EU played an active role at the 10th session of the Human Rights Council and secured the adoption of a number of important initiatives, for example the extension of mandates on Burma/Myanmar and the DPRK and the EU-GRULAC resolution on the rights of the child. More disappointingly, we failed to reintroduce the mandate of an independent expert on the DRC.
In the General Assembly, the role of the Third Committee in protecting and promoting human rights has been confirmed, and the EU took an active role at the 63rd Session of the UN General Assembly. This has led to positive results, in particular the follow-up resolution on the death penalty. A significant part of your report is dedicated to this issue. We have raised it constantly, including at the highest level, with partners who share our views, in order to support the global trend towards abolition. These efforts will continue.
Let me now say a few words on the EU guidelines. Following revision of the European Union human rights guidelines and the adoption of new guidelines on violence against women, the focus is now on effective implementation. As part of this, the Presidency put forward some proposals, such as arranging for guidance notes to be sent to Heads of Missions and Commission delegations. We also intend to raise these issues in our dialogues and consultations with third countries.
The report draws attention to the issue of women’s rights, and I know that Mr Obiols i Germà pays particular attention to this issue. This is one of our top priorities. We are working on the implementation of the UN Council Resolution 1325, which we are using as a guiding principle for ESDP operations and which has allowed us to develop a framework for gender mainstreaming.
On human rights defenders, the EU will continue to cooperate with civil society organisations. Work at official level within the Council on the possibility of expanding the issuing of visas for human rights defenders is continuing. In dialogues with third countries, freedom of expression and raising individual cases will remain central to our agenda."@en1
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