While welcoming the adoption of the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, MEPs called, on Thursday 8 July, for the regime to be extended to corruption.
“Corruption has a devastating impact on the state of human rights, and often undermines the functioning and legitimacy of institutions and the Rule of law”, said the resolution by the Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Sub-committee on Human Rights, David McAllister (EPP, Germany) and Maria Arena (S&D, Belgium), which was adopted by 584 votes to 73 with 33 abstentions in plenary.
MEPs also called for sanctions related to this regime to be adopted by qualified majority voting instead of unanimity. They also stressed the need for all EU Member States to interpret the application and enforcement of sanctions in the same consistent and timely manner.
Denouncing the counter-sanctions imposed on the EU in connection with this sanctions regime, the European Parliament underlined the need for a “swift, robust and coordinated response” by the Union to retaliatory sanctions by third countries. Moreover, the EU must ensure that bilateral agreements with these countries do not undermine the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime or the Union’s foreign policy credibility in general, warn MEPs, in a thinly veiled remark regarding the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (see EUROPE 12723/16).
See the resolution: https://bit.ly/2SYrk7q (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)