MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
28.5.2008
pursuant to Rule 103(2) of the Rules of Procedure
by André Brie, Tobias Pflüger and Esko Seppänen
on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group
on the EU-United States Summit
B6‑0292/2008
European Parliament resolution on the EU-United States Summit
The European Parliament,
– having regard to its resolution of 14 February 2007 on SWIFT, the PNR agreement and the transatlantic dialogue on these issues,
– having regard to its resolution of 22 May 2008 on the negotiations between the European Union and the United States with regard to visa exemptions (visa waiver),
– having regard to its resolution of 14 February 2007 on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners,
– having regard to its resolution of 22 May 2008 on rising food prices in the EU and the developing countries,
– having regard to its resolutions on Guantánamo,
– having regard to Rule 103(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas certain policies of the US Administration constitute a serious obstacle for the development of transatlantic relations; whereas a US policy oriented towards multilateralism, peace and the rule of law in international relations, a policy for sustainable development and the fight against poverty, for social justice and for the solution of global problems could give a major impetus to the development of EU-US relations,
B. whereas relations between the civil societies of Europe and the United States are deeply rooted and are based on common values, such as respect for and promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, sustainable economies and sustainable development,
C. whereas it is obvious that the military-dominated foreign policy of the US Administration has failed, in particular in the following fields:
- ∙the US-led invasion of Iraq and its subsequent consequences have led to widespread violence, sectarian conflicts and chaos threatening the unity of Iraq and the stability of the whole region and resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced persons, especially women and children, within and outside Iraq,
- ∙the operations of the NATO military forces in Afghanistan have resulted in a new destabilisation of the country,
- ∙the so-called fight against terrorism and the failure to address the mounting economic and social problems in the world are producing new violence,
D. whereas the US Administration is accountable for serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo,
E. whereas the United States bears the major responsibility for the erosion of the arms control and disarmament system,
F. whereas the US Administration’s strategy to combat terrorism has made use of pervasive instruments to monitor sensitive data relating to European citizens, such as the Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement, and to monitor bank details through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network; whereas these actions risk undermining the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens,
G. whereas since 2001 the Council has exempted US citizens from the visa requirement; whereas unfortunately a comparable exemption does not apply to all EU citizens, as the US still maintains the visa requirement for nationals of some Member States (currently Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) due to the fact, among others, that the rate of visa refusal, which is based on non-transparent criteria, is, for most of these countries, greater than 3% of applications (10% under certain conditions),
H. whereas the US Administration did not ratify the statute of the International Criminal Court, but has tried by means of bilateral impunity agreements to prevent its nationals from being accountable to the ICC for unlawful actions,
I. whereas the death penalty exists in 38 states of the United States and at federal level,
J. whereas the United States did not sign the Kyoto Protocol,
1. Reaffirms the importance of the relations between the United States and the European Union and, in particular between their peoples; regrets that largely because of the foreign policy of the US Administration but also in economic cooperation, there are serious problems in the development of the transatlantic partnership;
2. Hopes that the election will usher in a strengthened US commitment to multilateralism and to peace worldwide;
3. Underlines that the defence of peace and international law, human rights and fundamental freedoms should be at the core of transatlantic relations; urges the Council and Commission to send a clear signal to their partners in the United States that the violations of these established rules and principles are fundamental obstacles for the development of the relations;
4. Calls on the Council and Commission to intensify the political dialogue with the US Administration on conceptual questions of international policy:
- ∙to state clearly that multilateralism, and in particular international cooperation within the UN, remains the best way to identify and meet threats and find solutions for global problems;
- ∙to reaffirm the EU’s opposition to any pre-emptive unilateral military action and military superpower concepts;
- ∙to reaffirm that the fight against terrorism cannot be waged in breach of international law and at the expense of established, basic and shared values such as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and the relevant Geneva Conventions;
5. Takes the view that, to this end, an intensification of the EU-US parliamentary political dialogue could be useful; demands that the Commission pay more attention to civil society relationships and not focus only on business dialogue;
International questions
6. Calls on the EU and US to make the MDGs the heart of international development policy; urges the Council, Commission, Member States and US to scale up their assistance to developing countries to maintain credibility regarding their commitments to increase aid; recognises the increased commitment of the US to development aid in general and to Africa in particular; urges the US President to use his last year in office to aim for ambitious outcomes for the G8 meeting in Japan and the UN MDGs Summit in September in New York; calls on the EU to maintain the MDGs and annual timetables for achieving 0.7% in ODA as a key point on the European Council agenda on 19-20 June;
7. Calls on the Council and Commission to defend, during the forthcoming EU-US summit, a policy on Iraq based on international law and to commit themselves:
- ∙to working for the establishment of the real and comprehensive sovereignty of Iraq and the immediate withdrawal of the occupying troops;
- ∙to contributing to the establishment of the real and comprehensive sovereignty of Iraq over its oil and other natural resources;
- ∙to assisting the political, economic and social reconstruction of Iraq;
8. Calls on the Council and Commission to express the EU’s serious concern about the pressure on Iran, to reaffirm the opposition to any military action, to insist on a peaceful political settlement to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programmes, to agree on the referral of the Iran issue from the UN Security Council back to the International Atomic Energy Agency and to start negotiations with Iran without preconditions;
9. Calls on the Council and the Commission to analyse with the US partners what strategic and conceptual misjudgements have contributed to the current situation in Afghanistan, including an honest assessment of both the current military strategy and the strategy for civil reconstruction; concludes that a major shift of strategy is necessary as peace, security and development will only prevail if the spiral of violence is brought to an end, if the prevailing military solution is replaced by reinforced civil reconstruction efforts, and if, as a result, the confidence of the Afghan population is restored; calls for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign intervention forces;
10. Takes the view that the resolution of the Middle East conflict on the basis of UN resolutions should constitute a major objective of transatlantic relations; expresses its deep concern that the deterioration of the situation of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank on the ground is undermining the credibility of the negotiations, which should lead to the end of the occupation and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian State alongside Israel on the 4 June 1967 borders; calls on the EU and the US to insist in their relations with Israel on an immediate halt to the building of settlements, the closure of check points in the West Bank instead of an increase in numbers, an end to the incursions into Palestinian towns, and the release of political prisoners; underlines the importance of concluding a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, by the end of 2008;
11. Calls on the Council and Commission to express, vis-à-vis their US partners, the EU’s serious concern about the plans to establish an anti-missile system in EU Member States and to call upon the US to withdraw these plans, which have alarmed European public opinion; takes the view that there is a risk of the new anti-missile systems leading to a new arms race making Europe a target for military attack and creating new political divisions between EU Member States, as well as between Russia and the EU;
12. Urges the EU and the US to seek to ensure the revival of negotiated arms control at multilateral level within the UN system and at bilateral level; reiterates its call to the US:
- ∙to stop the development of new generations of battlefield nuclear weapons;
- ∙to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- ∙to ratify the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction;
- ∙to abandon its resistance to the Compliance Protocol to the UN Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention;
13. Calls on the EU and the US
- ∙to take concrete steps to limit and finally prevent the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW),
- ∙to declare an immediate moratorium on using, investing in, stockpiling, producing, transferring or exporting cluster munitions until a binding international treaty has been negotiated to ban the production, stockpiling, export and use of these weapons;
- ∙to contribute to the strengthening of the NPT regime by strictly implementing all NPT obligations, in particular Article 2;
- ∙to give new impetus to the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the strengthening of its organisation;
14. Calls on the US to ratify the statute of the International Criminal Court;
15. Notes that the High-Level Working Group, composed of representatives of the Commission, the Council and US governmental representatives of the Justice Ministry and the Department of Homeland Security, constitutes the political framework for EU-US dialogue on security matters; insists that the European Parliament and the US Congress should be associated with this High-Level Working Group and that its agendas and minutes, the documents examined and decisions taken should be published;
Global Challenges and Climate Change
16. Calls on the US to show its willingness to cooperate with the international community by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol; urges the US to do its utmost to wrap up work on its domestic climate legislation by the December 2009 UN conference in Copenhagen;
17. Urges the transatlantic partners to tackle the issue of climate change as a matter of priority, building on the successful Bali conference in December 2007; calls on the EU and the US to work together to achieve an ambitious post-2012 agreement in 2009, including both mitigation and adaptation of action at international level;
18. Calls on the transatlantic partners to give high priority in the consultations to the solution of the food crisis; underlines the need to increase emergency aid to address the immediate threat to the world’s poorest people posed by higher food prices; calls on the Council, the Commission and the US Congress and Administration to address structural problems such as under-investment in agriculture, and calls for a coordinated global approach by the EU, US and multilateral organisations, which should include fairer trade rules and increased investment in agriculture in developing countries, focused on small-scale producers and women; calls on the leaders of the EU and US to actively support and participate in the UN Task Force on the Global Food Crisis established under the leadership of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon;
Human rights and fundamental freedoms
19. Stresses the need for transatlantic political dialogue on matters concerning the fight against terrorism in the sense of combating it by legal means; urges the Council and Commission to stress that the appropriate legal framework for governing the international fight against terrorism is criminal law and international human rights law;
20. Calls on the Council and Commission to make it clear that the judicial safeguards contained in EU norms and traditions have to be fully respected in all agreements with the United States, that European data protection standards have to be guaranteed, and that no retention or use of data can be allowed which would undermine any rights and guarantees;
21. Reiterates its call on the Council of the EU and the European Commission to finally implement the recommendations addressed to them by its Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners (TDIP); hopes that the US Administration will finally address the issue of the closure of Guantánamo Bay and that EU Member States will do their best to support the resettlement of released prisoners, in order to accelerate that process; regrets the US Administration’s decision to build a new detention complex in Afghanistan in a stark acknowledgement that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come; condemns all forms of torture and ill-treatment and reiterates the need to comply with international law;
22. Renews its condemnation of the death penalty; recalls the UN General Assembly Plenary Resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty adopted on 18 December 2007, which was sponsored by a cross-regional alliance, including the EU; reiterates its call on the US Government and all US states to abolish the death penalty; regrets the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court to uphold the lethal-injection method of execution, opening the way to resumed executions;
23. Stresses in this respect that the Union must act credibly, strongly and in unity to ensure that the visa waiver regime is extended to all Member States, and that it must be ensured that any bilateral agreements between Member States and the US do not breach EU law, thus the exchange of PNR data should not go beyond the EU-US PNR agreement;
Other questions
24. Reiterates that the existence of the Helms-Burton extraterritorial laws and the trade embargo on Cuba are illegal and must be withdrawn; calls on the Council and Commission to raise the matter during the EU-US summit and to work for the repeal of those provisions, if necessary challenging the US in the WTO;
25. Expresses its deep concern about the imbalances in legislative dialogue with the United States and its impact on European legislation;
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26. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Parliaments of the Member States, and the President and Congress of the United States of America.