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Keskiviikko 6. heinäkuuta 2022 - Strasbourg

23.3. EU ja monenvälisyyden puolustaminen (A9-0172/2022 - Javi López)

Mündliche Erklärungen zur Abstimmung

  Mick Wallace (The Left). – Madam President, this report talks about preserving a system of multilateralism that we are presently busy destroying. What is multilateral about a block of colonialist countries, their colonial outposts, and their conquered and occupied puppet regimes conspiring together to maintain a dying global order? We unilaterally impose crushing sanctions regimes against out-of-favour states and their populations, sanctions that are killing tens of thousands of ordinary people each year. How can we even pretend the concept of EU respect for multilateralism or human rights has any meaning anymore?

The G7 and NATO-aligned countries, which collectively represent a minority of the world’s people, want to contain Russia and China and stop EU-Asia integration. The BRIC countries, which represent a larger portion of the world’s people, are not calling for this break – for isolation or for containment. They are clear that they want to maintain a world where multilateral institutions such as the UN are respected. The EU seems to want world domination. The Global South really wants genuine multilateralism. We should listen to them.

  Clare Daly (The Left). – Madam President, I voted against this report because, while there’s some good bits in it, overall it’s confused and deceptive. It purports to be a call to defend multilateralism, but instead it attempts to redefine it and turn it into its opposite.

Multilateralism in a multipolar world means working through genuinely inclusive bodies – such as the UN – on the principle of sovereign equality, where each country has a say. It means listening to the people that you disagree with. It doesn’t mean groups of so-called like—minded partners forming a little gang – be it the G7 or the G20 – and negotiating your own rules and then imposing them on the rest of the world. That’s the opposite of multilateralism, but that’s the way it’s defined in this report.

We should be calling instead for upholding international law. But instead this is about rules—based international order. That isn’t international law. That means the rich countries making up the rules and giving everyone else orders to follow. We couldn’t be more in need today of returning to genuine multilateralism, but unfortunately, this isn’t it.