Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, every year, we have this human rights debate immediately before the UN Commission on Human Rights meets in Geneva, and every year we are able, in fact, wholeheartedly to endorse what the Commission and the Council have to say. The fact is that the principles that we proclaim are common to us all and there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that we give them our full support. The President-in-Office of the Council has quite rightly said that human rights are an indispensable requirement if peace, stability and prosperity are to be secured. That, though, brings us on very quickly to the deficits, and the Commissioner has stressed that the Human Rights Commission does not really use its opportunities in the way that it could. I believe that the Irish presidency does honestly want to make action for human rights a keynote of its presidency. This is something for which Ireland has a very good record; it has produced such outstanding figures as Mary Robinson, who have distinguished themselves in this area. With reference to something else – the Constitutional Treaty – your Prime Minister said today that he wants to do his best, but that he is not alone. Where human rights are concerned, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are indeed, unfortunately, not alone. The chairman of my group said something on this subject this morning, to the effect that it would be a good thing if action for human rights in major States were to be given some substantial expression, that is, in joint communiqués. According to the old Prussian principle of administration that ‘government is done in writing’, that which is not on file does not exist, and if, in your dealings with Russia or China, you discuss things behind closed doors without mentioning them in a communiqué, then – politically speaking – nothing has happened. I therefore ask you, when you represent the European Union at meetings of the UN Commission on Human Rights, to support resolutions on China, on Russia and also on Iran. I am the rapporteur on Iran and believe that the present situation makes it necessary that we do this. Let me draw on a proposal by the House dating back some years and advise you not to concentrate on our 15 or 25 Member States, but to act in concert with all the democracies that sit on this Commission, consulting with all the functioning democracies around the world and coming to agreements on what your common concerns are. Turning to the Africans, one cannot but wonder what they actually want: appreciation on the one hand for the way in which they are establishing high standards under NEPAD, the new programme for African development, and for even establishing the peer review mechanism that we spent yesterday evening discussing, but when it comes to getting practical, they shy away, even objecting to Australia assuming the presidency – probably because Australia has taken a high-profile line on Zimbabwe. I regard all that as highly dubious, and we have to ask ourselves what we are going to do with the Africans. I said yesterday that I am very much in favour of us supporting those who do something practical in defence of human rights, but, contrariwise, that also means that we have to impose sanctions on those who do not.

Political group: PPE-DE