Ursula Stenzel (PPE-DE). – (DE) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 30 years after the end of the Vietnam war, which dragged Cambodia and Laos into its vortex, the position as regards human rights in these three South-East Asian countries still leaves much to be desired.

That we are repeating ourselves is irrelevant, for we cannot put the spotlight on these problems too often. Laos is under single-party rule, and any kind of opposition is out of the question. The country is cut off from the international community, without any freedom of opinion or belief, not to mention its being a centre of opium production and of the illegal trade in wood, and the mistreatment of juveniles that goes on there.

In Cambodia, the rights of women and children are disregarded, and the opposition and its supporters are suppressed. The law courts have no independence, parliamentarians lose their immunity from prosecution, and journalists end up behind bars.

Despite economic progress and a certain willingness to take human rights issues seriously, Vietnam, too, imposes the most stringent restrictions on the expression of opinion and the freedom of the press, and is still, lamentably, suppressing the practice of religions, whether that means persecuting Buddhists or Roman Catholic priests.

For as long as people are ending up in jail for their opinions and beliefs, this is a problem that should be addressed not only in a resolution by the European Parliament; the Council and the Commission, too, should help promote good governance, the development of institutions and the implementation of administrative reforms.

Aid from the EU must only be given subject to these political conditions being met. It is with this in mind that the joint motion for a resolution expresses not merely a pious wish, but an appeal to all the institutions of the European Union.