Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-21-Speech-1-083"
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"en.20050221.13.1-083"2
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".
Madam President, President Barroso has just proposed complicity in a good cause between the Commission and Parliament. On behalf of my group, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I should like to refer to two possible areas of complicity in the light of current events. You mentioned the most relevant event yourself, Mr Barroso, namely the forthcoming talks in Brussels with the President of the United States.
I believe that, following Condoleezza Rice’s charm offensive in Europe, it must and it will emerge in the coming days and weeks – and the Iran issue will be the acid test – whether we have only one common goal and continue to go our own separate ways, or whether we manage to develop multilateral measures and avert the danger of unilateralism, which we saw during the preventive war against Iraq.
On behalf of my group, may I warmly encourage you and strongly urge the Commission to make every effort in the forthcoming talks to persuade the US Administration to lend its active support to the negotiating strategy of the three EU representatives.
Let me reiterate the common aims of both the American and the European negotiators and the EU Member States. Our aim is complete consensus. We must prevent the further proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the wider Middle East. We must press on with the development of a political strategy for the wider Middle East on the basis of the European security strategy. We must succeed in enshrining a binding commitment by Iran to refrain from military use of the potential created by its nuclear programme, and we need unlimited access for the International Atomic Energy Agency to enable it to inspect all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. These are the prerequisites for the creation of a ring of security around every country in the region, including Israel.
I am convinced that the European negotiations are the right way forward and are far more likely to succeed if we can persuade President Bush not merely to wait in the wings, not to engage in verbal sabre-rattling and not to keep open the option of a preventive attack, but to put on the agenda an active review of the current economic sanctions against Iran, as well as discussing security guarantees for Iran.
I believe we shall advance in this area if we also remain true to our principle of safeguarding human rights. I appeal specifically to the Commission not to shelve the dialogue on human rights for the duration of the negotiations, but to intensify it. I very much regret having to say this, but I have learned that the German Government, the selfsame Government which is actively supporting our negotiations on the EU side, has instituted deportation proceedings against a 26-year-old woman who obtained a divorce from her Iranian husband and converted to Christianity. Deportation to Iran in these circumstances – and we have opposed it in two previous resolutions – exposes a woman to the danger of stoning, persecution or even death.
I believe that such a bipolar policy makes it difficult, but we must manage to rally a majority in Europe behind a coherent human rights policy. That will establish our credibility on the Iran issue. I have no wish to see Iran succeed in playing off the Europeans against the Americans, because we both have the same objectives. I must re-emphasise that point.
Let me also refer at this juncture to another issue where my group is in agreement with the President of the United States, namely the continuation of the embargo against China. If we say that the criterion of respect for human rights is fundamental to our European foreign policy, we must acknowledge that the human rights situation in China remains appalling, and it was for this reason that the House adopted a resolution only a few weeks ago in which it rejected the initiative launched by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder. We expect this embargo to be maintained and reaffirm that economic interests must not take precedence over human rights."@en1
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