Mr President, it would appear from the last speech that the Government of the United Kingdom is responsible for the violence in Colombia. I would like to state that up to now, in the documentation I have seen, I have not found any involvement by the Government of the United Kingdom in the violence in Colombia. The fact is that in Colombia people are being killed – the revolutionaries (the FARC) kill them, the paramilitary organisations linked to the Government kill them – and to make any kind of pronouncement right now as to the guilty parties in Colombia seems premature to me. At present there is a situation of violence and those responsible for that violence are in fact the Europeans, because we Europeans left in Colombia, as in many other countries, a trail of injustice, of social differences, which persist to this day. The European Union has been concerned with Colombia for a long time. Unfortunately, we have not been able to influence events in a very positive way. But we have at least succeeded in increasing the country’s economic activity to the point where, today, 40% of Colombian exports are destined for the countries of the European Union. I believe that in the European Union we are faced with a somewhat desperate task, because the years are passing and the violence continues. The violence also affects us closely. For example, in Madrid, forty Colombians have been assassinated in the last six months by Colombian drug trafficking organisations, by hired assassins who come specially from Colombia to kill their fellow citizens. If the events of 11 September have demonstrated anything it is that violence in the world has no limits, that in a globalised world violence affects us all and that therefore, any action we take in a faraway country such as Colombia ultimately benefits our own citizens as well. We have to protect our citizens and the citizens of the whole world in lands as remote as Colombia. I know that the Commission and the Council are restricted in terms of achieving such results. If the Colombian Government, if a large number of people dedicated to achieving the pacification of the country in the country itself (writers, intellectuals, etc.) have failed to achieve those results, it is unlikely that we will be able to achieve them, but I believe – I am availing myself of the presence of the Commissioner, who deals with a very sensitive area concerning this issue, to say this – that we should continue our efforts. Rather as in the myth of Sisyphus, we should continue rolling the stone from the bottom of the mountain to the top, despite all events to the contrary. I am convinced that both the Commission and the Council will agree with Parliament on continuing to help the Colombian Government and the political leaders of good faith of that country to find a solution to put an end to the escalation of violence, which seems to be plunging Colombia, that magnificent and stupendous Latin American country, ever more into the abyss. I therefore hope that, between the three institutions, the Council, the Commission and Parliament, we may help in some measure in the pacification of Colombia. IN THE CHAIR: MR MARINHOVice-President

Political group: PSE