Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-14-Speech-4-178"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010614.9.4-178"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, the death of the Nepalese royal family rocked the world. We would like to tell the people of Nepal that they have our solidarity. King Birendra, whom I met once as Vice-Chairman of the SAARC delegation, was very popular and very well liked. His espousal of democracy, of a majority party system, gave a great deal of hope to this country, a country which – as Reinhold quite rightly says – is so bitterly poor economically but so rich culturally. The tragedy in the royal palace in Kathmandu, in which King Birendra, his wife Aishwarya and other members of the family died, leaves a vacuum. The curfew and the ban on meetings can only go some way towards calming the situation; there have already been quite a few violent attacks.
The first positive sign was when the new King Gyanendra said he would sign the old Nepal constitution, his brother's constitution, in order to continue the democratisation process begun by the family. Setting up a committee of inquiry was also important as a first step towards winning trust in the face of huge reservations on the part of the people about the new ruler. The committee is chaired by the head of the supreme court, which is neutral enough, but the committee will only win credibility if members of both the government and the opposition sit on it together, of course, with international observers. So if a delegation is to take part, it must be the SAARC delegation of the European Parliament.
The Maoist underground rebels have tried to grab this opportunity to destabilise the country still further. The government and the opposition must finally realise that they have to meet each other half way and reach some sort of consensus. They must remove the conditions in which terrorism and subversion thrive and that requires a common approach, not personal ups and downs. The PPE-DE Group calls on the king and the politicians responsible to do everything in their power to relieve the people of their anxiety and concerns and the EU, Commissioner, must send out a suitable signal.
I again call on the European Commission to open an office in Kathmandu, where the SAARC secretariat-general has its headquarters, which we can use as a base from which to implement the excellent cooperation agreement between the European Union and Nepal. This agreement is an excellent basis, as acknowledged by the European Parliament several years ago."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples