Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-03-Speech-3-196"
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"en.20081203.17.3-196"2
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"Mr President, this year we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. But even though this was a success at the time, we must now express our frustration and bitterness with the failure to make it a legally binding instrument.
Three years have passed since the Council Working Group on Arms reached a technical agreement on a common position. How many more years does the European Council need to adopt it? How can we, as the European Union, protect our own credibility when speaking against illegal arms trafficking, if we are not able to put our entire house in order?
We need a Code of Conduct to be legally binding if we want to avoid any easy intra-Community transfer of arms, which may tempt brokers to look for the weakest link in Europe. When we speak of arms exports, we should think at the same time of human lives at stake in unstable countries. We can easily be accused, instead of peacemaking, of fuelling local conflicts in vulnerable parts of the world.
I welcome the French Defence Minister’s declaration that France has withdrawn its reservation on the common position. Will the French Presidency be able to convince the other Member States which are still opposing it? I can only hope so, and wish for the French Presidency to make the adoption of the common position in the next two weeks another of the great achievements of its term of office."@en1
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