Strasbourg, 13/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament decided on Wednesday, by adopting a resolution from the Foreign Affairs Committee, in favour of the strengthening of the relations with Asian countries, notably on the basis of new proposals that it invites the Commission to present in preparation for the ASEM IV Summit, which will take place in 2002 in Copenhagen. The Radical Olivier Dupuis being the original rapporteur: he resigned after a first vote in Committee, not being able to support the text adopted by majority (31 votes for, 1 against and 3 abstentions), and the Foreign Affairs Committee decided to submit the text to a vote under the name of its President, the German Christian Democrat, Elmar Brok. The explanatory memorandum is completed with w "minority opinion", where the parliamentarians that cannot accept the report specify their reservations on a Community policy in Asia that they define as a policy of critical dialogue on human rights or "Chinese policy" that neglects the "rest" of Asia, which also includes, in particular a country such as India, which has nearly as many inhabitants as China and is based on the principal of the primacy of law.
The resolution formulates a series of requirements concerning: - human rights. The undertakings that concern human rights must be included in the main ASEM documents, and a study is favoured on the level of respect for the undertakings already made; the countries that do not respect these rights must be excluded from the summits, meetings or EU programmes; - security and politics. The EP hopes for the continuation of cooperation in terms of arms control, non -proliferation, conflict prevention and peace in the world. In this context, the accession of new members such as India (but it is also necessary to envisage extension to include New Zealand and Australia) would play an important role. The reinforcing of parliamentary cooperation within ASEM would be, according to the EP, the key to political dialogue; - economic and social policy. The EP calls for the development of social dialogue, the enhancing of the economic pillar of the ASEM process and more substantial efforts to reform the international financial framework in order to avoid crisis as in the past.
The Commission is in agreement with the Parliament over the need to develop both these different pillars of dialogue and cooperation, confirmed Chris Patten, when noting, among others, that the EU/ASEM meetings would have everything to win from a lighter agenda, leaving less room for speeches to privilege informal and sometime bilateral talks. The growing trend by the Asian countries to include civil society in the process is a factor for hope. The Commission, said Mr Patten, will return to all these themes in a document on the Union strategy with regards to Asia, which it will present in July.