Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, as there is a massive amount of lost ground to make up in relations between the EU and Asia. We are behaving as if Europe were something other than an appendage to the Eurasian continent, as if it were the centre of the world, and as if Asia were on another continent. The ASEM is certainly a useful forum on cooperation, but it is that only if all the Asian countries belong to it, with, at the least, prominence given to those that are striving to become democratic. For example, I see the ASEM as unthinkable without India. Only with the EU's firm commitment is the creation of democracy in Asia a feasible process, and the democratic countries, of which Taiwan is an example, can and must be planted and nurtured as a leavening influence. Taiwan can, one might say, become the engine for the continuing process of democratisation that we want to advance in Asia. Moreover, cooperation agreements between Asian countries and the EU – one thinks of Laos and Vietnam – are meaningless unless they are actually adhered to. My primary concern now is with the mountain areas, for Asia has the highest mountains in the world, including the Himalayas, the Karakorum, the Hindu Kush, and also the Pamir Mountains, and it is in these mountainous areas, which, when we look at them on the map, are bigger than the whole of the EU, that we find the greatest trouble spots. Let us consider Tibet. Tibet has its own history and culture. Tibet is of about the same size as Europe measured from Gibraltar to the Urals. Tibet was occupied by China in the 1950s. The intelligentsia and the leaders of its society were driven out of the country. His Holiness the Dalai Lama left the country in 1959 and now lives, with his government-in-exile, in exile in India. The Tibetans were admittedly promised autonomy, which was formally introduced in 1965, but this autonomy is a pure farce. All things Tibetan were increasingly repressed, and the country is being plundered. The railway that is now to be built from Golmod to Lhasa, and which, incidentally, runs across zones of permafrost, which makes little sense, does not serve to keep the country supplied, but to keep on exploiting it. In this hybrid system, part-capitalist, part-communist, China has done everything to marginalise Tibetan culture along with this minority. All efforts on our part towards human rights have to date been in vain. This initiation will repress all things Tibetan unless the EU works to counteract it. Our next stop is Sinkiang, still today belonging to China and with a sparse Muslim population. It is a vast region in the west of China between the Kuenlun Mountains and the Altai and Pamir ranges. Here too there is repression, the violation of human rights and, after 11 September 2001, yet more suppression under the pretext of combating terrorism. No longer is autonomy even mentioned. I wonder whether we Europeans might offer our experience of regional conflict resolution as aid here. So we come to Kashmir, Asia's number one trouble spot, a problem dragged out from 1947 onwards, with the divided Kashmir, called Jammu-Kashmir, torn between Pakistan and India. Following many wars between the two countries, soldiers have been facing each other down, in summer and winter alike, at 6 000 metres above the sea, for 15 years. Nuclear war has been threatened. Attempts to resolve the conflict have been unsuccessful. I am not concerned here with apportioning blame to one side or another, but with finding solutions. The indigenous people, the Kashmiris, must of course also be asked, and here too, autonomy is a possible solution, perhaps even shared autonomy for this divided country, and we Europeans have a number of models to offer of how to achieve solutions. As regards autonomy, the same is true of Tibet, of Sinkiang and of various regions in the Caucasus. Let us move on to Nepal, a small but very densely populated country. Here there are situations resembling civil war and plunging this country – one of the world's poorest – into virtual self-destruction. On the one hand there is a corrupt government, and on the other there are rebels describing themselves as Maoists, fighting each other, each under the pretext of supporting the impoverished rural population. While this is going on, the rural population and tourism, which is this country's sole surviving source of income, get trampled underfoot. This means that our non-governmental financial aid, which has indeed hitherto alleviated a certain amount of poverty, is no longer possible. At the moment, I see no chance of giving this little kingdom at the southern foot of the Himalayas some degree of freedom from its self-destructive dilemma. Nor has peace been brought to the situation in Afghanistan. The mountainous areas of the Hindu Kush have been laid waste, tourism is impossible there as an economic activity, and the mountainous areas are becoming more and more desolate. What we Europeans have to bring about is, firstly, respect for all other lifestyles, the protection of minorities, and, of course economic aid, peacekeeping, education, conflict resolution, and, where necessary, intervention. How, though, are we to play our part in influencing political interaction in the complex entity that is Asia, and how is the EU to play its part in shaping it, if we do not learn to speak with one voice? For as long as the EU fails to thrash out a common foreign and security policy, much of what we want to implement, and should put great effort into implementing, will unfortunately remain nothing more than wishful thinking. This last point is unfortunately the most important for us to resolve before we take on our real task in Asia. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE