David Martin (PSE). – Mr President, like the two previous speakers, I fear that the Commission and the Council have both painted rather a rose-tinted view of what is now the situation in Turkmenistan.

The current President may be marginally better than the President he replaced in February 2007, but is he sufficiently better for us to agree to an interim trade agreement as a precursor for a partnership and cooperation agreement? As Mr Markov and Ms Flautre said, in the Committee on International Trade we set five very clear tasks for Turkmenistan that we would want to see met before we gave our agreement.

Firstly, we said that the International Red Cross had to have free access to Turkmenistan. Unless the Commission and the Council can tell me differently, I understand that up until now the Red Cross has not been able to visit one single prison or prisoner in Turkmenistan.

Secondly, we said that they had to realign their education system with international standards. The Council is right to say that it has expanded the secondary education system by one year, but my understanding again is that, despite minor improvements in the education system, this has not been aimed at the mass of Turkmens but at the elite and preparing those who wish to work in the oil and gas sector.

Thirdly we have asked for the release of all political prisoners. Some have been released, but not many, and there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of political prisoners languishing in jails in Turkmenistan, still awaiting a fair trial.

Fourthly, we said that we wanted the abolition of all restrictions to external travel. It is interesting that both the Council and Commission concentrated on internal travel. We said there had to be external travel freedom as well. That has not been delivered.

Finally, we said there had to be free access for independent NGOs, free access for the UN human rights bodies and freedom of the press. Well, there is no press freedom, there is no free access for NGOs, and, while the UN inspector on religious tolerance may have been allowed in, Turkmenistan has the longest queue of UN-requested visits of any country in the world.

Is this really a country that we can do business with? Well, I suspect for the majority in this House and in other institutions the answer is clearly ‘yes’. Why have things changed since the Trade Committee passed its resolution in 2007? Cynics might say that it is because gas and oil have been discovered in Turkmenistan, because we want to build a new pipeline, because we suddenly find it in our strategic interest. If that is the case, let us not pretend it is to do with an improvement in human rights. It is to do with self-interest at European Union level.

(The President cut off the speaker)