Brussels, 03/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament (EP) wants tougher sanctions on the leaders of authoritarian states, and calls on member states to ensure that they are “strictly prohibited from owning assets and property within the EU”. With its adoption on Thursday 2 February of the report by Graham Watson (ALDE, UK) containing “a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on a consistent policy towards regimes against which the EU applies restrictive measures, when their leaders exercise their personal and commercial interests within EU borders”, the EP urges member states to reveal the names of leaders against whom sanctions have been put in place and who own assets within their borders, and also the value and the location of these assets. MEPs call on states strictly to apply travel bans on sanctioned leaders and their families.
“The EU's hypocritical stance towards the leaders of authoritarian regimes needs to end. We publicly denounce their human rights records, while letting them busily stash their money away in our banks, own property within our borders, do business with our companies and holiday in our resorts”, Watson said. “From Gaddafi to Mugabe, or Tunisia's Ben Ali to Burma's Than Shwe, authoritarian leaders and their money have in the past been far too welcome within our borders. Travel bans and asset freezes have only been put in place once the leaders are on their way out anyway. This is of no use”, he went on.
To make sanctions more effective, MEPs call for clear criteria to be developed for when restrictive measures are to be applied, their objectives and how they are to be evaluated. Parliament wants to be more closely involved in this process. It also wants to “maximise collaboration and synergy amongst the 27 EU member states” and urges them “to speak with a unified and consistent voice on the matter of condemning authoritarian regimes through a single integrated EU approach” and to seek better coordination of measures internationally. The EP calls, too, on France, the UK and any non-permanent EU member of the UN Security Council to “use sufficient suasion to ensure that UNSC resolutions are implemented rigorously and thoroughly”. (CG/transl.rt)