Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-279"
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"en.20001114.10.2-279"2
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"Mr President, we talked about this issue a month ago and had an excellent discussion with the Commissioner. We were all agog. Naturally we welcome the fact that the process has been opened up to North Korea. It is just a shame that we have not seen fit to make the necessary funds available to go with it. Apart from that, we feel the outcome left a lot to be desired, and that is putting it mildly. What we dislike about ASEM II is not so much what we
managed to achieve, because projects to do with money-laundering, HIV and AIDS, food safety and suchlike, are of course to be welcomed. In fact two concrete proposals have been adopted, notably the round table on globalisation and the duo fellowship programme, 4300 fellowships amounting to a total cost of USD 25 million. That is not to be sniffed at of course, but there are still a few questions we would like answered. I will return to them in due course.
What is more important is what was
adopted. We could have done so much more in terms of financial stability, trade and investments, and infrastructure. An ASEM environmental centre was proposed. Now that would have been something. What concerns us is what we failed to do on the human rights front. Things were said but they have not found their way into the projects that were agreed, not even in terms of the considerable reserve, for example, although this could easily have been done. In any case, this considerable reserve also has something to do with globalisation. We agreed to concentrate on globalisation, in particular the adverse effects thereof, when in fact we believe that globalisation is a positive force. There is a down side but surely we should also consider the bonuses.
We find it incomprehensible that the secretariat for the fellowship programme is to be located in Seoul. ASEF is working extremely well in Singapore, so why not establish it there?
We know that the Commission values ASEM extremely highly and it has our wholehearted support on that score. What we want to know is whether our Ministers have given ASEM due consideration. We feel they have been sadly lacking in ambition and are therefore unworthy of praise.
Some headway has been made in terms of Asia-Europe parliamentary dialogue. Perhaps we parliamentarians can succeed where Ministers have failed in this respect. The European Commission deserves our support because we are convinced it is going about things the right way. That said, we feel the Ministers ought to have been able to achieve a much better result."@en1
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