Madam President, I welcome the Commission's communication, 'Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for Enhanced Partnerships', and Mr Maaten's report, for which we congratulate him. We have in the past too often neglected Asia and focused more on other regions of the world, but in fact it contains a majority of the world's population. We welcome the recognition, both in the report and the Commission statement, that we must engage with Asia, not only in trade and economics, but in other areas as well: cultural exchanges, for example, particularly between Europe and Asia's moderate Islamic states; justice and home affairs, in the war against terrorism, drugs traffic and organised crime, all self-evidently with a global dimension; environmental policy, where Europe and Asia face the same threat from pollution and environmental degradation; security policy, where, in an increasingly globalised world, a crisis on the Korean Peninsula – as Commissioner Patten mentioned – would threaten the peace and stability of the whole world. That is one reason why the European Union is engaged in the KEDO process. We therefore welcome the emergence of Asian voices speaking together through ASEAN and other regional fora. We also welcome and would like to encourage and deepen the widening of the ASEM process and its parallel parliamentary dialogue through ASEP. I had the opportunity to participate in the first ASEP meeting here in Strasbourg back in 1996 and in last week's second ASEP meeting in Manila, where we achieved a unanimity of views with statements on terrorism, the environment, on human rights for women and children. Here Members of the European Parliament from Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy joined with colleagues from China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines to agree that Kyoto needs to be ratified; the UN must be the basis of the global war against terrorism; positive action is required to address discrimination against women; we should work with trade unions and other representatives of civil society to combat child labour. The fundamental problem is poverty, with hundreds of millions of people around the world, particularly in Asia, living on less than one euro a day. We hope Parliament will agree to the proposal in the amendment that I and other Members of Parliament have tabled to host ASEP III early in 2004. We can support the broad thrust of Mr Maaten's report. My only criticism is that an attempt has been made to hijack the report on behalf of the Taiwan lobby. Of course Members of Parliament have a perfect right to do this, but we should be aware of what we are being asked to approve. I would remind Members of the provisions of Rule 9(1), Annex I, Article 1 on declarations of interest. On behalf of the Socialist Group, I have tabled amendments to attempt to correct these distortions. Yes, we must recognise Taiwan as one of the most important trading entities for the EU, but here we are being asked to go further. If we want to abrogate our support of the one-China policy we followed in the past, we should do so directly, rather than by hiding it within paragraph 35 on the WHO. Membership of the World Health Organisation is restricted to nation states. To demand membership of the WHO for Taiwan is to recognise it as a nation state; to grant it an independence that its own government has not even requested. Equally I am at a loss to see why, if the Group is genuinely interested to allow the fundamental rights of freedom of travel for the President and senior officials of Taiwan's Government, it wants to restrict this to strictly private visits, rather than leave it more open. Otherwise we can only conclude, if they maintain their position, that this is really a subterfuge for opening up a political process that as yet we have not agreed. With these reservations, we support the report.

Political group: PSE