Margrietus van den Berg (PSE). – (NL) Mr President, every year, approximately one million people are wounded by hand-guns, machine guns or grenade launchers. The extent of firearm violence globally is enormous, as is the human suffering. In recent armed conflicts, small lightweight firearms are often the only weapons that are used. In southern Africa alone, some 30 million light firearms are in circulation; in the Middle East, estimates range from 60 to 110 million. The majority of these weapons are produced and sold legally. For dozens of years, international Treaties have been in place to control biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and their spread, but despite the enormous number of fatalities, this is not yet the case for the sale of and trade in conventional weapons. This results in human rights violations, long-term wars and countries that are becoming more impoverished. The large majority of these weapons are produced by five rich countries. In 2005 Russia, the US, France, Germany and Great Britain jointly accounted for 81% of the worldwide arms trade.

More than two thirds of these weapons are intended for Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Not only human lives are being destroyed, also economies, infrastructure, health care and education. In Northern Uganda alone, 2 500 children have not attended school during the last 20 years of armed violence.

The UN resolution of 6 December 2006 sets the scene for a treaty against this free circulation and in favour of control of the trade as a whole. This is, of course, of the utmost importance if we want to curb conventional weapons. I would therefore urge the Council – and I gather from the acting Chairman, Mr Gloser, that something is being done – to get a massive, rapid and positive response from Europe and, for our part, to tackle the serious shortcomings in the application of the European code of conduct from 1998. EU weapons still wheedle their way into countries such as Sudan, China and Sierra Leone. It is high time we made this code legally binding, as this would give the UN process an enormous shot in the arm.