Mr President, of course, like many of those who have already spoken, I welcome the fact that the Council has now submitted a first annual report on human rights, as called for repeatedly by Parliament. One important point which I would like to raise is the human rights clause in treaties with third countries, which has already been implemented on numerous occasions since 1995. Human rights clauses are a fundamental part of these treaties. People and their basic rights are therefore removed by means of a treaty from the powers of disposal of the other party to the treaty, despite the fact that we have always taken the view that insisting on human rights does not represent interference in the internal affairs of a country. What is important as far as the practical implementation is concerned, is that both the EU Commission and the Member States have the political will in this particular instance not only to identify violations of human rights and hence of a fundamental part of the treaty, but also to apply the legal consequences provided for, which generally start with consultation and may lead to the suspension of parts or even the cancellation of the entire treaty. But we all know what happens in practice. Time and time again, human rights issues are pushed to one side or even considered to be counterproductive for irrelevant reasons. Either a lucrative transaction hangs in the balance or the agreement or support of some government or other is needed, for example in a particular committee at UN level. Luckily, non-governmental organisations working in this area cannot afford to take account of such false considerations and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking them with all my heart for their work. And we Members of Parliament, both here and in our national parliaments, should likewise shun such considerations. Denunciations of human rights violations are not merely sound bites in daily politics. We have seen time and time again that the targets, i.e. the governments which are publicly accused of human rights violations, find such denunciations highly embarrassing and try to prevent them. If we were to ensure that neither governments nor individual undertakings were willing to jeopardise the solidarity of the democratic community of states for the sake of concluding a treaty, these governments would have no opportunity of playing one off against the other. A country such as China, to name one example, still needs our technology. We should not ignore the plight of thousands of prisoners of conscience or suppressed national groups such as the Tibetans just so that we can build a new railway or ensure that a State visit proceeds smoothly. I, too, therefore support the idea of adding another report to the report here and to the numerous other reports on the same subject. I would like to see more details on individual countries in the next report, for example, on which occasions the Council or the Commission approached which government on a specific matter. One might also offer during such discussions to refrain from mentioning the matter if it is cleared up by the time the next report is published. We can afford to be flexible in form, but not in content!

Political group: PPE-DE