Statement by Jose de VENECIA
Chairperson of the Advisory Council of the AAPP,
Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
on the occasion of the third part of the 2005 Ordinary Session
of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
(Strasbourg, Tuesday, 21 June 2005, 10 am)21/06 2005
For us in Asia, too, integration has become a 'possible dream'
Ladies and gentlemen,
We bring you fraternal greetings from the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace (AAPP).
Founded in Dhaka (Bangladesh) in 1999, the AAPP is Asia's largest gathering of parliaments. It counts as members 39 national legislatures from every region of our continent.
Already our Association has become a channel for dialogue among our governments ‑ and a force for Asian stability.
The AAPP has also grown in cohesion and unity of purpose.
Last year, our Islamabad Assembly approved in principle a proposal to convert the AAPP into an Asian Parliamentary Assembly 'within five years' ‑ on the model of this Assembly, whose creation in 1949 has had such a catalytic effect on European integration.
That is why we were so pleased when President Rene van der Linden agreed to become the distinguished 'Resource Person' at the meeting of our Senior Advisory Council in Manila last April.
Our vision of a continent without dividing lines
Our member‑Parliaments have easily accepted the idea of Asian integration ‑ following precedents not only in Europe but also in the Americas and in Africa.
For us, too, the vision of a continent without dividing lines has become a possible dream.
And we believe the integration of Asia will keep in balance the three legs of the stool of global interdependence ‑ Europe, Asia, and America.
The market system inducing economic integration
In our part of the world, economic integration is being induced by the market system that most of our countries have adopted, despite their differing political systems.
Now that the 10 Southeast Asian states have been gathered into ASEAN ‑ Association of Southeast Asian Nations ‑ our leaders are discussing the idea of an East Asian Economic Grouping that would incorporate the ASEAN states and the three Northeast Asian states of China, Japan, and South Korea.
The initial phase of this grand union ‑ a free trade area of the ASEAN ‑ 10 and China‑began last year, and should be completed by 2010.
We're mindful of the lessons that Europe's founders taught
Like the European Union, Asia is pursuing its political objectives through practical steps in economic and cultural cooperation of self‑evident usefulness.
We're mindful of the lessons Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer, and de Gasperi taught.
And the basic principle is that ‑ in Robert Schuman's words ‑ "Europe will not be built in a day, nor as part of an overall design. It will be built through the practical achievements that first create a sense of common purpose."
We continue to track the progress of European solidarity ‑ Europe's steady enlargement; its launch of a common currency; and its effort to agree on a Common Security and Foreign Policy.
And we share your anxietiesover the rejection ‑ by French and Dutch voters ‑ of the draft EU Constitution, as well as your hopes that Europe's statesmen will find a way out of this electoral crisis.
The vote reminds us all of how hard it is to balance national diversity and supranational unity. But a Union such as yours ‑ which has lasted for half a century ‑ is surely strong enough to withstand the occasional 'No' from its national constituencies.
Practical achievements that create a sense of common purpose
Like you, we too intend to begin with practical achievements that create a sense of common purpose.
Broadening the Asian anti‑terrorist coalition is one such goal ‑ since the use of terror for political and military purposes is a true crime against humanity.
And there are peace processes taking place all over Asia ‑ in the Middle East; in Kashmir; in Sri Lanka; in Nepal; in Southern Thailand, Aceh in Indonesia, Mindanao in southern Philippines; in the Taiwan Straits and in the Korean Peninsula ‑ that our Association should lead, support, and encourage.
Then there are human rights initiatives ‑ to protect the rights of women, children, migrant workers, and other vulnerable social groups ‑ that we must back up.
Southeast Asia is close to agreement on an inter‑government mechanism to promote human rights throughout the region.
Meanwhile our colleague, H.R.H. Prince Norodom Ranariddh of Cambodia, has proposed that we draft a Charter on Human Rights for all the Asian nations.
Helping Asia win its battle against poverty is the most urgent ‑ the noblest ‑ cause of all
Then there is the most urgent ‑ and the noblest ‑ cause of all: that of helping Asia win its battle against poverty.
Toward this goal, we are creating an Asian Anti‑Poverty Fund and setting up an Asian Monetary Fund.
The Anti‑Poverty Fund will back up the micro‑banks that lend working capital to Asia's entrepreneurial poor.
The Asian Monetary Fund will aid Asian countries in crisis ‑ more decisively than the IMF was able to do for Thailand and Indonesia in 1997.
A debt‑reduction and debt‑conversion initiative for the poor countries
We hope the European Union would endorse a debt‑reduction and debt-conversion initiative the Philippines is proposing to the United Nations, the rich countries, and the international lenders.
The United Nations has spelled out its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of halving global poverty by 2015.
But the poor countries will be hard‑put to finance their national MDG programs.
Indeed the 100‑odd debt‑ridden countries are finding more and more difficult to service their $2.3 trillion in official debt‑stock.
The global community must help them shed some of this burden ‑ and we believe the way to do so is not through debt‑forgiveness or debt‑cancellation.
Specifically, we propose that, over a specified period, half of all scheduled debt‑payments be retained by the debtor‑countries ‑ to be invested in reforestation, clean water, mass‑housing, food production, primary health‑care, basic education, farm‑to‑market roads, ecologically‑sound tourism, livelihood programs, and other MDG projects.
A reservoir of goodwill for Europe in Asia
There's a reservoir of goodwill for Europe in Asia - not only for your classical culture but also for the way you have softened the hard edges of individualist enterprise with compassionate social policies.
We look to your concept of a ‘social market’ as the most promising model of how to reconcile the workings of global markets with society's need for a measure of equality, fairness, and compassion.
The importance of inter‑faith dialogue
We have also come to realize that every state is threatened by anarchic forces in the world‑system; that poverty, oppression, and despair anywhere must become the concern of all.
To isolate those who advocate terrorism in the name of religion, my country offered the General Assembly a resolution ‑ co‑sponsored by Iran and 23 other states - to promote global Interfaith dialogue as a way of resolving civil conflicts.
Interfaith dialogue should help heal schisms between religions wherever in the world they may occur.
It is in the communities of Europe that all our protestations about Christians and Muslims living peacefully together will be tested in practice.
Europe is where mankind's future is being shaped
Lastly, we see the European Union, Asia, and the Americas as the tripod of global stability in this new century.
But ‑ beyond this ‑ we believe Europe's role in the future world should be to encourage the replication of its experience in regional unification on a global scale.
For Europe is where humankind's future is being shaped ‑ where we may expect "reason and humanity" to "develop more rapidly than anywhere else."
Already a new world order is being born on this continent ‑ as states give up portions of their national sovereignty on behalf of a new "civilizational venture."
Even now, European stability rests no longer on the balance of power but on the rejection of force and on "self‑enforced rules of behavior."
Gradually ‑ painfully ‑ the whole of the global community is moving away from the perpetuation of rule by power‑toward "communities of consent."
This is likely to be a slow, evolutionary process.
It will suffer – unavoidably ‑ the occasional setback ‑ such as last fortnight's plebiscite.
But I have no doubt that it will be in Europe that we will first see the flowering of a full‑blown community of consent - of the type that men and women of goodwillhave hungered for, since our kind became established on this planet.