Iran Holocaust conference, enlargement, law enforcement and extraordinary rendition

Speech by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Wed 13th Dec 2006

Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, I hope the European Council will express its condemnation of the Holocaust Conference - or, more accurately, the 'Holocaust Denial Conference' - just held in Iran. I appreciate the fact that the President of Parliament did just that this morning. It is essential that the European Union makes clear at the highest level - that of the assembled Prime Ministers - its opposition to this outrageous exercise in mischief and hate.

On enlargement, it is very disheartening that some EU countries and some MEPs seem able to contemplate Turkey only in negative terms of doom and gloom. In fact, Turkish accession would be a great asset for the EU. Of course, there are difficulties and Turkey does have legal obligations it is not fulfilling, but it might help if the Council also fulfilled its political pledge to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. The European Council also needs to fulfil its commitment to keep the door open to the Balkan countries.

On making the EU more effective in law enforcement, the draft European Council conclusions are an exercise in contortion. They start by emphasising, quite rightly, that our citizens want concrete results on cross-border crime and terrorism and that the EU is failing to respond adequately. But they end only by confirming the principles of the Constitutional Treaty - which is great, but gives us no medium-term solution. The fact that the Council could not agree a prisoner transfer measure because of a veto by one Member State just adds to the long list of failures and inaction. The criminals are laughing all the way to the bank.

Finally, a word about extraordinary rendition, torture flights and secret prisons. I can but dream of a united European Council enjoining each of the Member States to carry out a thorough examination into possible complicity. Maybe there would be more of a chance of such an outcome if the Council did not treat the European Parliament's temporary committee with such disdain. In its 2006 Human Rights Report, presumably produced under the authority of Council Secretary-General Javier Solana, it says: 'The EP carried out an inquiry led by Mr Dick Marty', but Mr Dick Marty led the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly's inquiry! If Mr Solana cannot even bother to distinguish between the two bodies, perhaps our draft final report description of him as 'uncooperative' can be considered justified.