Mr President, Commissioner, I think the House is so empty because we have proceeded apace this evening and some members who wished to speak have not yet arrived and are still dining. I would ask you, therefore, not to interpret the low turnout as an indication that the issue is not important. Commissioner, first I agree with your reading that the ASEM process is hugely important. It is of huge political and economic significance. I only wish that both this House and many of your colleagues in the Commission would see the importance of Asia's relations with Europe from the right perspective, and that includes the Union's fisheries policy – may my Spanish colleagues forgive me and with my excuses to Mr Fischler. If you take a long-term view of political and economic developments in our multi-polar world, then you will see that Asia's relations with Europe, and vice versa, are of paramount importance. In this respect we are extremely lucky that the summit in Seoul took place at all and that, with one or two exceptions, all the heads of government attended. That was highly significant. You are quite right that the Asian Summit was somewhat dominated, in the positive sense, by developments in both North and South Korea, with the result that more time was spent evaluating and qualifying the rapprochement on the Korean peninsular than on a real in-depth discussion of the Asia process. But we should be pleased that positive developments are taking place there. Allow me, however, to comment on the poor Council representative who will have to write up his protocol at some point: obviously the situation was awkward in Seoul due to the fact that some EU Member States have stopped exchanging ambassadors with North Korea and others have not. It would have been smarter – if we are to have a common foreign and security policy – if all 15 Member States had taken a joint decision to resume relations with North Korea at the same time and on the same terms, as opposed to this display of showmanship by some Heads of State and Government. It is good – I freely admit – that some agreement was reached on a framework programme for cooperation between Asia and Europe. But, Commissioner, have you in all honesty understood the substance of the framework agreement? I still have a great deal of difficulty really understanding the substance of what has been agreed for the next decade. And here I think that, what is important to Parliament – even if only a few of us are here, someone should read the protocol and we specialists will take it from there – is for it to be involved in the process of putting flesh on the bones of the framework for cooperation between Asia and Europe. I think, in any case, that Parliament conducts itself far too reactively. As we have such a good negotiating partner in you, Commissioner, we should try to agree on the content before Copenhagen and before the conferences and Parliament should start us thinking about how we can flesh out the framework which you have decided on. I am delighted that the European side took a clear stance on human rights. But we need to discuss the consequences of what that means at our leisure. I think it was an excellent political declaration but we still have a few problems here. I think that it is our job here in Parliament to follow up on what the European side generously included in the conclusions, namely cooperation between the European Parliament and the parliaments of the countries in Asia, following the first ASEM conference held in Strasbourg a few years ago. It is an important task and I can only hope that Parliament will initiate the second meeting next year before Copenhagen. We should arrange to hold it in Asia, given that the last meeting was held in Strasbourg. It is when you look at cooperation between Asia and Europe from the point of view of democracy or human rights that you see how important it is for us to cooperate more closely with parliaments in the Asian countries and bring about positive developments.

Political group: PPE-DE