Strasbourg, 03/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - Last Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution expressing disappointment at the outcome of the UN Summit in New York in September and hoping the EU would be able to get a 'common seat' on the Security Council in the future. (The entire European Parliament resolution will be published in Europe Documents.) During the debate, the President of the Council, Douglas Alexander, admitted that there was a general feeling of frustration and disappointment following the UN Summit. There were a few reasons to be cheerful, however, and he pointed out the decision to increase aid to combat poverty and the EU's historic pledge to double its aid to Africa by 2010; firm condemnation of terrorism (but he said action should go further than promised and the Counter-Terrorism Convention should be signed by September 2006); and the most important outcome, the pledge to protect people from genocide, atrocities and war crimes. European Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said recognising the principle of protecting civilian populations was a positive manifestation of the concept of sovereignty. She said the participants had learned lessons in this connection from Kosovo. She did not hide her disappointment (shared by virtually all speakers) at the failure to adopt a statement on disarmament or agree on a real United Nations body to look at climate change.
Some MEPs tried to convince themselves that the Summit had not really been as bad as all that, like Francisco Millan Mon (EPP-ED), who expressed some relief that the foundations had been laid. Glenys Kinnock (PES) welcomed the fact a link had been made between security, development and conflict resolution (commenting in passing that self interest seems to increasingly push the United States along the multilateral road). Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (ALDE) was happy the European Parliament had been actively involved in the New York Summit, but Lapo Pistelli (ALDE, Italy) did not share this voluntarist optimism, even about the duty to protect people from atrocities - since the document says each case should be decided on its own merits, how did this advance matters?
Most left of centre MEPs were disappointed. Speaking for the Greens/EFA, Frithjof Schmidt said it was a missed opportunity, and Miguel Portas (GUE/NGL) said it was an outright failure. Jo Leinen (PES) said the biggest disappointment was the failure to agree on disarmament. If someone was watching us from another planet, the German Social Democrat commented wryly, they would think we had decided to destroy ourselves. British Tory MEP Nirj Dewa regretted the lack of progress on reforming the running of the UN itself (Douglas Alexander told him that Kofi Annan would be unveiling new proposals in the third quarter of next year). Tobias Pfuger (PDS, Germany) said there was only good thing about the Summit, the fact that people didn't go any further than the idea of preventative strikes. Various MEPs said the failure came as a surprise to nobody and there was nothing to be regretted because multilateralism has its limits. It cannot work if it does not work in the interest of states, said Paul Marie Couteaux (IND/DEM). A Swedish MEP from the same group, Helene Goudin, said the European Parliament should not tell the United Nations how to debate or how to organise since that was the UN Member States' job. She opposed the idea of the EU having a common seat on the Security Council. On this issue, raised by several speakers, the President of the Council, Douglas Alexander, concluded the debate by saying that the European Union did not speak with one voice on this issue and the United Nations Statute was clear on the issue - the EU cannot have its own chair on the Security Council.