Mr President, first of all I would like to pay tribute to all who served on the recent EU election observation mission to Pakistan, particularly the members of my core team and also the European Parliament delegation led by Miss Grönfeldt Bergman. Secondly, I would like to thank the EU Commission personnel involved in election observation. Thirdly, I would like to express my appreciation for the moral support and political solidarity extended by Commissioner Patten. Regrettably, I am unable to add the name of the Council and the Presidency to the list of those I would like to thank. The reason is that I am very angry at the statement issued by the Presidency concerning the election and I regret that the same sentiments were expressed today. I would like to seek clarification on aspects of the statement. How can the Presidency commend the Pakistan authorities for their cooperation with the mission when it was fully aware that we never received a formal invitation from the authorities and that they also refused to sign a memorandum of understanding, including an agreement to provide security cover. This information was officially reaffirmed in a démarche to the Danish Presidency six weeks after we arrived in Pakistan. The Presidency should also have been aware of the public attacks on the EOM by several government ministers, using such inflammatory language as 'these Western whites have no interest in peace in Pakistan; these people come from unfriendly nations and have hostile objectives; this Mission is interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan'. How can you regard this as cooperation? Security cover was indeed finally provided for the second half of our mission, but it came from the provincial governors and not from the federal authorities. Furthermore, in its statement the Presidency expresses 'concern' about reports of manipulation – very mild indeed – and you ask the Election Commission to follow up such complaints. Did you actually read our report? Surely you are aware that we expressed serious criticism of the Election Commission and its lack of independence? To ask the Election Commission to investigate election malpractice is like asking Saddam Hussein to head the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq. I would like to remind the Council that the mission I led was not a Parliament mission, it was an EU mission consisting of 88 dedicated people, who discharged their task professionally in line with internationally accepted criteria for election observation. As you and the Commissioner have said, they worked in a particularly sensitive political and security environment at great personal risk to themselves. Yet within four days of our preliminary report being published in Islamabad you effectively distanced yourself from our conclusions that it was a seriously flawed process. You did so despite the fact that Member States received full weekly reports of our observations. I and members of my core team also briefed heads of mission in Islamabad on a weekly basis. Yet never once did anyone challenge our ongoing assessment. And even at the final debriefing of heads of mission in Islamabad, little or no opposition to our analysis was expressed. Ironically, by comparison, the Presidency strongly criticised the elections in Togo on 27 October, where there was no EU observation mission, yet you chose to ignore the conclusion of the Pakistan mission that had been operating for two and a half months. Why was the initial draft of your reaction to the election toned down? Who influenced you? Who pressurised you? And because your statement is being used by Pakistan's embassies worldwide to undermine our report, you betrayed the EU mission you sent into the field and I say on their behalf, shame on you. I would also like to take the opportunity to refute the untrue allegation made by the Pakistan ambassador in Washington that the EU/EOM leaked an interim briefing report. In fact this was leaked by an Islamabad-based diplomat for a Member State government, who was in Europe at the time, and was designed to undermine the work of the EU/EOM. Returning to your reaction, not only does your response betray the EU/EOM, it is a betrayal of the interests of the people of Pakistan, especially those who are courageously working for the restoration of democracy. Your failure to endorse the conclusions of the EU/EOM and other observer groups such as ANFREL, NDI and the Commonwealth, compounds your predecessor's mistake in failing to criticise the farcical presidential referendum and is directly responsible for encouraging the Government of Pakistan to behave as it does. But as well as betraying the EU/EOM and ordinary Pakistanis, you are also betraying the ideals of your own Presidency. Let me remind you that in your own Presidency programme, you set yourself the twin tasks of 'increased effectiveness and greater openness in the field of human rights'. The statement on the Pakistan election showed little commitment to this. But worst of all, tailoring your response for geopolitical reasons was a total betrayal of the principles underlying election observation, which is designed to enhance democratisation and human rights.

Political group: PPE-DE