Communication from the Committee of Ministers
presented by
Miguel Ángel MORATINOS
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation of Spain,
Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers
on the occasion of the first part of the 2009 Ordinary Session
of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
(Strasbourg, 26-30 January 2009)
Mr President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and my compatriot, Lluís María de Puig,
distinguished parliamentarians,
ladies and gentlemen,
It is a real pleasure for me to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I have been looking forward to this moment since my statement to your Standing Committee on 28 November last year, 12 hours after taking over the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.
I want to convey to you my enthusiasm and my respect for your work, and I wish to set out the objectives of the Spanish Chairmanship while sharing with all of you the responsibility for giving the Organisation its political impetus. The members of this Assembly must hold debates, provide solutions and develop appropriate responses to aid the process of building a freer and more democratic Europe showing greater respect for human rights.
Spain attaches great value to your work and calls for coherent policies to defend the interests and meet the concerns of the 800 million European citizens who make up the societies of the 47 states represented in this Assembly. I believe that the monitoring of member states’ commitments performed by this parliamentary institution should be taken further and that we should encourage new initiatives to strengthen the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, in line with the aims we set ourselves at the Warsaw Summit in May 2005.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen,
The “era of responsibility” called for by the President of the United States upon taking office places us back in the original context in which this Organisation was founded. Values such as human rights, international co-operation, consensus and dialogue between societies and religions must guide the actions of the players on the international scene, with Europe and its regional organisations at their head.
To mitigate the effects of the climate of gloom and mistrust prevailing in the international community, we must strengthen the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly, and set ourselves the joint objective of upholding our values as a guarantee of our ability to rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
Furthermore, the Spanish Chairmanship wishes to promote whatever action is necessary to establish a rapid and effective Council of Europe presence in Georgia, within its sphere of competence, and, through continued dialogue with both parties, find a way to a solution that is acceptable to all.
Where the Middle East is concerned, I toured the region just a few days ago and had numerous meetings and talks in several countries to help bring about a “ceasefire” in Gaza, as called for by this Assembly. I added my voice to your call for an immediate end to hostilities out of a conviction that peace and the security of Israelis and Palestinians cannot be guaranteed by force, and in order to avoid any further increase in the number of victims and the scale of the humanitarian tragedy.
During this tour and at the Sharm el Sheikh conference, Spain called for dialogue between the Palestinian factions, the regional players and Israel in order to promote co-operation and the reconstruction of the strip, and to initiate a comprehensive and irreversible peace process in the region. This conflict must lead us to re-affirm our shared values and reactivate the peace process and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen,
Spain is convinced of this Organisation’s undeniable contribution to the European architecture and its ongoing process of construction. The question is: what can we do together? From the standpoint of effective multilateralism, respect for international legality, responsible governance and the promotion of human rights, we Europeans can and must take the lead in this process, from the Urals to the North Atlantic.
Mr President, distinguished members of the Parliamentary Assembly,
The document setting out Spain’s priorities adopts an approach that looks ahead to the future while exercising the political will of the present. We took over the Chairmanship in the firm, unshakeable belief that this Organisation is a cornerstone of the European architecture and a guarantee of the strength of our shared fundamental values. The Spanish Government and Spanish society want the Madrid ministerial session on 12 May to be an event that re-affirms this belief in the form of a declaration by the Committee of Ministers marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Council of Europe.
The next few months are going to see particularly intense activity in a wide range of fields: the Gypsy population, children, youth, terrorism, intercultural dialogue, linguistic diversity, and so forth, and Spain looks ahead to them with a sense of hope and responsibility, in the belief that the effort will yield benefits for European citizens.
All the members of this Assembly have looked at the priorities set out in this document, and therefore I am not going to go over them again and describe them, although I do wish to make a few comments on some of the objectives pursued.
The situation of the European Court of Human Rights demands our attention in this, the year of its 50th anniversary. We need to move forward in terms of the efficiency of its operation and the implementation of its judgments. The Spanish Chairmanship wishes to issue a call for Protocol No 14 to come into force as soon as possible, although we are still awaiting the opinions of the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) and the Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI), which were requested by the Swedish Chairmanship in close collaboration with its Spanish successor, with a view to clarifying the practical aspects of its implementation. In this connection, we are prepared to explore all avenues of political and diplomatic dialogue with all the member states in order to find ways of achieving a consensus.
It is also our ethical and political responsibility to promote and defend the fundamental values on which our Organisation is founded and to regain the initiative and inspiration which made possible the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights, the benchmark and guarantee of citizens’ fundamental rights in Europe and other regions of the world.
We accordingly support the American President, Barack Obama, in his determination to close Guantánamo prison, a position also expressed by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg. And we welcome his decision to put an end to torture, unlawful detention, secret prisons, rendering of prisoners and all forms of degrading treatment of detainees in breach of the most fundamental humanitarian principles. To close this episode we must show our commitment to human rights and our solidarity with the United States.
I similarly attach great importance to the joint Council of Europe statement to mark the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and for the Prevention of crimes against Humanity, which serves to remember the victims and fix in the collective memory the barbarity and devastating effects of the persecution and extermination of the Jews in Europe.
The Council of Europe has been a pioneer in the fight to achieve gender equality, and this has also been a political priority for the Spanish Government in the last few years, as reflected in intense legislative activity and the creation of a Ministry of Equality. In line with this political action, the Spanish Chairmanship undertakes to focus attention on this area in order to translate words into action and achieve higher levels of effective equality in the societies of the member states.
Another challenge for this Chairmanship is to eliminate trafficking in human beings, which feeds on, and enslaves, the weakest and most disadvantaged groups. The Spanish Government recently approved a plan against this odious practice and hopes to deposit the instrument of ratification in February. In the first week of the Spanish Chairmanship, the Spanish School of Diplomacy hosted a seminar on the Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings.
As regards the fight against terrorism, I would like to emphasise the need to define it as a serious violation of human rights which we must fight with human rights and through concerted action from the perspective of comprehensive security provided by the United Nations comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy. During its term of office the Spanish Chairmanship intends to organise, in early May, the first meeting of states party to the Convention for the Prevention of Terrorism. This meeting will be preceded by a seminar on “Human Rights and Terrorism”. Spain would also like to express its satisfaction at the decision by CODEXTER to hold its meeting in Spain in April this year.
Mr President,
The Council of Europe’s relations with the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations should be a priority in the first half of this year, because the time has come to strengthen and update multilateral structures and give added cohesion to the instruments available to the international community so that they are more effective in responding politically to the cross-cutting challenges of the 21st century.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my statement, Spain is convinced of the Organisation’s undeniable contribution to the European architecture and its ongoing process of construction. We will therefore work to promote the achievement of the objectives laid down in Warsaw, in co-operation with the Czech Presidency of the European Union and the Greek Chairmanship of the OSCE.
This same spirit must lead us to identify specific areas of activity within the United Nations framework, where we must take the lead and be the driving force in an international committee against the death penalty and develop closer interaction between human rights and intercultural dialogue within the Forum for the Alliance of Civilisations in Istanbul.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen,
Our Organisation must adapt to the new perspectives emerging in the international community and find solutions to possible adverse developments resulting from the climate of financial crisis and economic recession, which must not affect the spheres of human rights and democratic freedoms.
The Secretary General made a detailed analysis of the Organisation’s financial position in his statement to the Assembly on Monday. The international economic context no doubt calls for the adoption of strict budgetary discipline. This criterion, which must be applied without exception, must not cause us to lose sight of the need to continue working effectively to promote the Organisation’s founding principles. As I explained to you in my statement to the Standing Committee, the Spanish Chairmanship endorses this criterion as a means of optimising the Council of Europe’s resources and adapting them to the demands of the international economic situation and the challenges facing the Organisation in these early years of the 21st century.
I would also like to mention the financial effort which we member states are making this year to meet the extraordinary increase in the funding needs of the Pension Reserve Fund, resulting in an increase in real terms of nearly 3% in our contributions to the general budget of the Council of Europe.
The Spanish Chairmanship hopes that it can count on the Assembly’s support in facing these challenges.
Thank you very much.