EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/670

(2004/C 78 E/0713)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3899/03

by Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission

(17 December 2003)

Subject: Meeting of EU-Lao PDR Joint Committee

Article 14 of the Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Laos states that ‘the Joint Committee [ …] shall normally meet every other year, alternately in Vientiane and in Brussels, on a date fixed by mutual agreement. Extraordinary meetings may also be convened by agreement between the Parties’. However, according to well-informed sources, in spite of this rule the meeting which should have been planned for last November apparently did not take place, because at least one of the two parties did not believe there were any important or urgent issues to discuss.

Does the Commission not believe that there are certain issues which are sufficiently important and urgent to warrant a meeting of the Joint Committee being held? Such issues include the ‘enforced disappearances’ of the regime's opponents, such as the five student leaders of the 26 October 1999 Movement, the fact that Mr Latsamy Khamphoui, a former minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), has now been in prison for over 13 years, and that Mr Feng Sackchittaphong, a former senior civil servant at the Ministry of Justice, is being held in the forced labour camp ‘Number 7’ for having published an open letter criticising the highest Laotian authorities, the cruel repression of the Hmong people and the Christian communities in Laos, the arrest and sentencing this summer of two European journalists, a Lao-American interpreter and three Laotians during a show trial, the generalised corruption, the failure to reform a judicial system which is entirely under the control of the single ruling party, the widespread practice of torture, the involvement of high-ranking dignitaries of the regime in all kinds of illegal trafficking (precious woods, drugs, precious stones etc.) and, more generally, the denial of freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion and other fundamental freedoms, which are the principles upon which the EU-Laos Cooperation Agreement is based. Furthermore, does the Commission not believe that in its relations with the Lao PDR the EU should place a great deal more emphasis on issues such as those mentioned above, on which the European Parliament has given its opinion on several occasions?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(30 January 2004)

The 3rd Commission-Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) Joint Committee Meeting was held in Vientiane, Laos, on 7 January 2004. The slight delay in the holding of the Joint Committee was purely due to scheduling difficulties.

In addition to discussions on a variety of issues falling under the scope of the Cooperation Agreement, including governance and human rights, both Parties agreed to set up an Informal Working Group on ‘Cooperation in the areas of institution building and administrative reform, governance and human rights’. Meeting regularly, the working group will allow the Commission and the government of Lao PDR to demonstrate their commitment to implementing the Human Rights chapter of the Commission-Lao PDR Cooperation Agreement in a more proactive way.