4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/1

A.

whereas Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is not only an environmental policy but also an ongoing process aimed at improving the economic and social conditions of coastal zones and securing the sustainable development of all the activities pursued in those regions, such as fishing and aquaculture,

B.

whereas the implementation of ICZM is a long-term process and most national strategies adopted within the framework of the abovementioned Recommendation began to be implemented only in 2006,

C.

whereas the management of coastal zones has so far been conducted in the medium term, ignoring the fact that these are complex natural ecosystems which change with the passing of time,

D.

whereas the decisions and measures that have been taken concerned an isolated activity and failed to tackle the problem of the degradation of coastal zones as a whole,

E.

whereas existing planning has so far focused on land and has failed to take into account the impact of some coastal activities on other activities pursued in the same region,

F.

whereas it is expected that national ICZM strategies will cost little to implement, while producing significant financial benefits,

G.

whereas there has been a failure adequately to involve representation of all sectors in planning and implementing measures to address the problems of coastal zones and, as a result, the interests of some sectors are being harmed,

H.

whereas the implementation of integrated-management policies involves the planning in coastal areas of population-related, tourism-related and economic uses and of landscape and environmental protection,

I.

whereas the effective coordination of ICZM bodies has not yet been possible except in isolated cases,

J.

whereas the implementation of policies to promote ICZM may, in some cases, require large-scale spending, which cannot be met by local communities, resulting in appeals to higher administrative levels and delays in implementation,

K.

whereas, owing to the cross-border nature of many coastal processes, regional coordination and cooperation are necessary, even with third countries,

L.

whereas fishing and aquaculture are two coastal activities par excellence which depend on the quality of inshore waters,

M.

whereas a level of technological development has not yet been reached in aquaculture which will enable that activity (which is intensive in nature) to be pursued away from coastal areas,

N.

whereas the fundamental and so far poorly acknowledged role played by women in fisheries-dependent areas must be taken into account,

O.

whereas inshore fishing accounts for 80 % of the Community fishing fleet and contributes to the economic and social cohesion of coastal communities and the preservation of their cultural traditions,

P.

whereas fishing, even though it is not itself a source of pollution, suffers the impact of pollution caused by other activities pursued in coastal areas, which further undermines its viability,

Q.

whereas fishing and aquaculture are of great economic and social importance, since they are mainly pursued in coastal regions with fragile economies, many of which are disadvantaged and unable to provide their inhabitants with alternative job opportunities,

R.

whereas the existence of a clean and healthy marine environment will contribute to the future increase in fisheries production and thus improve prospects for this sector,

S.

whereas aquaculture is firmly based on the principle of sustainable development, and any environmental impact is offset by Community rules,

T.

whereas in an environment in which fish stocks are in decline and world demand for fish and shellfish is increasing, the importance of aquaculture in Europe is steadily growing,

U.

whereas not all Member States have yet completed their regional planning in line with the principles of ICZM for the balanced development of activities pursued in coastal zones,

V.

whereas there is fierce competition for space in coastal zones, and aquaculturists and fishermen have the same rights and obligations as other users,

W.

whereas the outermost regions, as defined in Article 299(2) of the EC Treaty and Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, may require the creation of specific integrated national ICZM strategies and an adequate adaptation of ICZM at EU level,

1.

Stresses the economic and social importance of fishing and aquaculture for coastal regions and calls for them to receive assistance within the framework of ICZM;

2.

Points out the need to ensure that the fisheries and aquaculture sectors are involved and well represented in transnational maritime clusters, and exhorts the Commission to stimulate this process;

3.

Emphasises that the European Fisheries Fund can contribute to the long-term funding of measures within the framework of ICZM, since it supports actions which contribute to the sustainable development of fishing regions;

4.

Points out the need to clarify the competences of the administrative bodies of the coastal zones concerned and establish coordinated strategies so that they can be more effective;

5.

Recognises the difficulties in coordinating the activities of coastal zone management bodies and calls on the Commission, in monitoring implementation of ICZM, to re-examine, after consultation with Member States, whether or not a coordinating body needs to be set up;

6.

Stresses the need for representatives of the fishing and aquaculture sectors to be involved in activities linked to the planning and development of ICZM, bearing in mind that their involvement in sustainable development strategies will increase the added value of their products, and recalls that the European Fisheries Fund may support such collective actions;

7.

Acknowledges the important role of women in fisheries-dependent areas and therefore calls on the Commission and the Member States to cooperate in order to promote and incorporate the principle of equal opportunities at the various stages of the implementation of the European Fisheries Fund, including the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages, as provided for in Article 11 of Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006;

8.

Calls for closer cooperation between competent bodies at regional level through exchanges of information relating to the state of coastal zones and the adoption of joint strategies to improve the environmental situation of local marine ecosystems;

9.

Calls on the national and regional governments of the outermost regions to prepare integrated ICZM strategies in order to ensure the sustainable development of coastal regions;

10.

Emphasises the importance, in the above contexts, of proper spatial planning;

11.

Aquaculture for repopulation purposes is an essential tool to achieve ecological conservation in certain coastal zones, and it must therefore be promoted, stimulated and financially supported;

12.

Stresses the importance of aquaculture to the food industry for social and economic development in some EU coastal communities;

13.

Considers that the fisheries and aquaculture sectors must both be included in a cross-cutting approach to all maritime activities taking place in coastal zones, in order to achieve sustainable development, in accordance with the new maritime policy guidelines;

14.

Stresses the need to develop and implement strategies to adjust to the dangers facing coastal zones, including climate change, taking fully into account the impact on fishing and aquaculture;

15.

Believes that data collection efforts must continue so as to contribute to the exchange and the use of information with a view to carrying out comparative studies, including data on the state of biodiversity and fish stocks;

16.

Considers that greater research efforts should be made in aquaculture with a view to introducing cultivation systems based on closed-circuit intensive production;

17.

Proposes that aquaculture projects which use renewable energy sources and which do not infringe areas protected under EU environmental law should be given priority under ICZM;

18.

Calls on the Commission, after consulting the Member States, to set a clear timetable for examining progress in the implementation of ICZM in the European Union;

19.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission and to the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/4

A.

whereas every asylum seeker is entitled to a full, individual examination of his or her claim,

B.

whereas asylum legislation and practice still vary widely from country to country and, as a result, asylum-seekers receive different treatment from one Dublin State to another,

C.

whereas the Dublin system is rooted in such premises as mutual trust and reliability and, if these prerequisites are not fulfilled, i.e. if there are serious gaps in data collection or inconsistencies in the decision-making process in certain Member States, the whole system suffers,

D.

whereas there is evidence that some Member States do not guarantee effective access to a procedure for determining refugee status,

E.

whereas some Member States do not apply the Reception Directive effectively, either to asylum applicants awaiting transfer to another Member State under the Dublin Regulation, or at the point of return to the Member State responsible,

F.

whereas some Member States systematically place persons subject to the Dublin system in detention,

G.

whereas the high level of multiple requests and the low level of effected transfers are indicators of the deficiencies of the Dublin system and of the need to establish a common European asylum system,

H.

whereas a correct implementation of the Dublin Regulation may well result in the unequal distribution of responsibility for persons seeking protection, to the detriment of some Member States particularly exposed to migration flows simply on the grounds of their geographical location,

I.

whereas the Commission's evaluation reveals that, in 2005, the thirteen Member States at the borders of the Union had to deal with increasing challenges raised by the Dublin system,

J.

whereas southern Member States are having to accept asylum applications from irregular immigrants who are rescued when in distress whilst they are on their way to Europe,

K.

whereas southern Member States are having to accept asylum applications from irregular immigrants without any assistance from third countries which are obliged to provide such assistance under international law,

L.

whereas Member States may have no interest in complying with the obligation of registering illegal entrants in the Eurodac database, as this may result in increasing the number of applications for asylum which they will have to deal with,

M.

whereas the Dublin Regulation establishes a system which is designed to determine the Member State responsible for dealing with a claim, but it was not originally put in place for, and therefore fails to serve as, a burden-sharing mechanism,

N.

whereas it is essential that any evaluation of the Dublin system is accompanied by a concrete, permanent, fair and functional burden-sharing mechanism,

O.

whereas the Dublin system's first-country-of-entry criteria put a lot of pressure on the border Member States,

P.

whereas recognition rates of candidates for refugee status vary for certain third-country nationals from approximately 0 % to 90 % within Member States,

Q.

whereas it is essential that individuals lodging claims are fully apprised of the Dublin process, in a language which they understand, and its possible consequences,

R.

whereas Article 24(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that in all actions relating to children, whether taken by public authorities or private institutions, the child's best interests must be a primary consideration,

S.

whereas although family unity is mentioned first in the hierarchy of criteria applied in the Dublin Regulation, that provision is not often applied,

T.

whereas there is an obvious lack of accuracy in statistical data on transfers, as they do not indicate, for instance, the rate of requests for taking charge of an asylum applicant based on an irregular crossing of the border, or the proportion of ‘taking charge’ versus ‘taking back’ requests,

U.

whereas in 2005 nine of the new Member States stated that they were registering more ‘incoming’ transfers under the Dublin Regulation and Member States with no external land border of the Union stated that they were registering more ‘outgoing’ transfers,

V.

whereas the Commission has been unable to evaluate the cost of the Dublin system and whereas that information is important to be able to assess its effectiveness,

W.

whereas the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 June 2007 invited the Commission to present as soon as possible an amendment to the Eurodac Regulation with the aim of enabling Member States' police and law-enforcement authorities, as well as Europol, to have access under certain conditions to Eurodac, a database which was conceived originally as a tool for implementing the Dublin Regulation,

1.

Strongly believes that unless a satisfactory and consistent level of protection is achieved across the European Union, the Dublin system will always produce unsatisfactory results from both the technical and the human viewpoints, and asylum seekers will continue to have valid reasons for wishing to lodge their application in a specific Member State to take advantage of the most favourable national decision-making;

2.

Strongly believes that in the absence of a genuine common European asylum system and a single procedure the Dublin system will continue to be unfair both to asylum seekers and to certain Member States;

3.

Reaffirms the urgent need for the improvement of both the quality and the consistency of the decision-making process; is convinced that a European Asylum Support Office could play a valuable role in this respect, for example in providing training to high common standards and through the provision of expert support teams;

4.

Asks the Commission to consider ways of providing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with direct financing to complement project-based funding in order to enable it to enhance its monitoring and advisory work in the EU and continue developing methods intended to support national authorities in their efforts to improve the quality of their decision-making;

5.

Asks the Commission to bring forward proposals for burden-sharing mechanisms which could be put in place in order to help alleviate the disproportionate load which could fall on certain Member States, in particular the border Member States, but do not fit into the Dublin system;

6.

Calls on the Commission, pending the introduction of European burden-sharing mechanisms, to consider providing for mechanisms other than financial within the Dublin Regulation to correct the adverse effects of its implementation for the smaller Member States at the Union's external borders;

7.

Asks the Commission to provide for a binding mechanism to stop transfers of asylum applicants to Member States that do not guarantee full and fair treatment of their claims and to take systematic measures against those States;

8.

Calls on the Commission to establish meaningful bilateral working relations with third countries in order to facilitate cooperation and ensure that such third countries meet their international legal obligations with regard to the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 28 July 1951 and rescue at sea;

9.

Asks the Commission to introduce into the new regulation clearer and more stringent provisions concerning the means by which the persons seeking protection are informed of the implications of the Dublin Regulation, and to consider drafting a standard leaflet which could be translated into a certain number of languages and be distributed to all Member States, and which should also take into account the individual levels of literacy;

10.

Asks the Commission to amend Articles 19 and 20 of the Dublin Regulation on ‘taking charge and taking back’, so as to provide applicants with an automatic suspensory right of appeal against a decision to transfer responsibility to another Member State under the Dublin Regulation;

11.

Reaffirms that the principle of non-refoulement should remain one of the cornerstones of any common asylum system at European Union level, and insists that the implementation of the Dublin Regulation should never lead to a claim being closed for procedural reasons and not reopened for a full and fair examination of the original claim after a transfer via the Dublin process; considers that this should be made clear in the Regulation;

12.

Considers that information-sharing on transfers between Member States should be improved, especially with respect to special medical care needed for the transferees;

13.

Calls on the Commission to assess the possibility for individuals concerned by a transfer to another Member State under the Dublin system to be able to be transferred to their country of origin, solely at their express request and on the basis of full compliance with procedural rights;

14.

Recommends that a set of common guidelines on age-assessment be adopted at European Union level and that in the event of uncertainty, the benefit of the doubt be given to the child;

15.

Recalls that in all decisions relating to children, the best interests of the child must be paramount; insists that unaccompanied minors should never be detained or transferred to another Member State, except for the sake of family reunification, and that if such a transfer proves necessary, the child must be duly represented and accompanied throughout the procedure; welcomes, therefore, the Commission's intention to further clarify the applicability of Dublin rules to unaccompanied minors;

16.

Regrets that the definition of a family member under the current Regulation is too restrictive and asks the Commission to extend the present definition to include all close relatives and long-term partners, particularly those who have no other family support, and adult children unable to care for themselves;

17.

Welcomes the Commission's intention to extend the scope of the Dublin Regulation to include subsidiary protection, as this should enable applicants for subsidiary protection to be reunited with family members who were granted this type of protection or are asking for it in another Member State;

18.

Asks the Commission to add a provision restricting the detention of Dublin claimants to a measure of last resort, thereby specifying the grounds on which detention may be employed and the procedural safeguards which should be provided for;

19.

Asks the Commission to state explicitly in the Dublin Regulation that Dublin claimants are entitled to the same reception conditions as other asylum seekers, in accordance with the Reception Directive, Article 3(1) of which lays down general rules notably on material reception conditions, health care, freedom of movement and the schooling of minors;

20.

Considers that the humanitarian clause contained in Article 15 of the Dublin Regulation gives considerable flexibility to the Dublin system, but that it should be applied more widely, so as to avoid undue hardship to families as a result of separation;

21.

Considers that where an asylum seeker is in a particularly vulnerable state owing to a serious illness, a severe disability, old age or pregnancy, and he or she is therefore dependent on the assistance of a relative present in the territory of a Member State other than the one in charge of the examination of the application, he or she should, as far as possible, be reunited with that relative; asks the Commission to consider making compulsory the relevant provisions of the humanitarian clause in Article 15(2);

22.

Considers that a proactive duty to trace family members should be introduced for organisations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent;

23.

Welcomes the Commission's intention to better specify the circumstances and procedures for applying the Sovereignty clause, notably in order to introduce the condition of the asylum-seeker's consent;

24.

Expresses its concern at the discrepancies and deficiencies in the collection of data revealed by the Commission's evaluation of the Dublin system, especially in relation to the registering of fingerprints of illegal entrants at the borders of the Union, which casts serious doubts on the validity of the system; trusts that the abovementioned Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection will give the stakeholders a more accurate picture of the functioning of the Dublin system and other Community instruments on international protection;

25.

Expresses its concern that no cost-assessment of the Dublin system is currently available; calls on the Commission to remedy this as it is an important aspect of the evaluation of the system;

26.

Notes with interest the concerns expressed by the Commission regarding the collection and the quality of data sent to the Eurodac Central Unit, as well as regarding non-compliance with the obligation to delete certain data and with the rules relating to the protection of personal data; considers that these failings, which call into question the reliability of Eurodac, should be addressed properly before any other use of this database be envisaged;

27.

Considers that each Member State should clarify, on a closed list, the agencies and authorities that have access to the Eurodac database, and for what purpose, in order to prevent any illegal use of data;

28.

Stresses that extending access to the Eurodac database to Member States' police and law-enforcement authorities as well as to Europol entails the risk that information may pass to third countries, which could have negative repercussions for asylum seekers and their families; is convinced that this would also increase the risk of asylum seekers being stigmatised;

29.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/10

A.

whereas the free movement of persons in the EU, particularly in the context of the most recent two rounds of enlargement and the corresponding extension of the Schengen group, has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of both persons and vehicles travelling across national borders for both business and private purposes,

B.

whereas the priority of protecting accident victims requires clear, precise and effective motor insurance legislation at EU level,

C.

whereas the Fourth motor insurance Directive called on the Commission to report to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation and the effectiveness of national penalties introduced in respect of the reasoned offer/reply procedure, as well as on their equivalence, and to submit proposals if necessary,

D.

whereas the Commission Report examines national penalty provisions, the effectiveness of the claims representative mechanism, and the existing availability of voluntary legal expenses insurance to which potential victims of road accidents can additionally subscribe,

E.

whereas Article 4(6) of the Fourth motor insurance Directive governs the reasoned offer procedure, under which victims of car accidents abroad have the right to apply for compensation to the claims representative of the insurer appointed in the country of the victim's residence,

F.

whereas the victim must receive a reasoned reply from the insurer within three months or sanctions are envisaged,

G.

whereas clarification of the functioning of this provision is still needed,

H.

whereas the Commission must take full account of enlargement when implementing EU policies, in particular the relatively high cost of motor insurance in the new Member States,

I.

whereas different penalty provisions in respect of the reasoned offer/reply procedure have been implemented in the Member States,

J.

whereas consultations with national authorities, including in the new Member States, have confirmed that current penalty provisions, where they exist, are adequate and that their implementation is effective across the EU,

K.

whereas, however, some Member States make no provision for specific sanctions and rely solely upon the insurers' duty to pay statutory interest on the amount of compensation if the reasoned offer/reply is not made within three months,

L.

whereas the claims representatives system is relatively well known in the majority of Member States,

M.

whereas the consultations carried out by the Commission to assess citizens' awareness of the claims representative system involved only the Member States and the insurance industry, without appropriately involving citizens and consumer associations, i.e. those most interested in ensuring that the system works properly,

N.

whereas legal expenses insurance for legal costs borne by the victims of motor vehicle accidents is available in most Member States; whereas more than 90 % of all cases are settled out-of-court and legal costs are reimbursed in many Member States; whereas, additionally, legal expenses insurers have already provided coverage for all types of cross-border case for a number of years and consequently have established their own departments to handle foreign claims and facilitate quick settlements,

O.

whereas the question of whether such reasonable legal costs should be covered by Motor Third Party Liability insurance in all Member States is still open,

P.

whereas, however, coverage of reasonable legal costs in all Member States by Motor Third Party Liability insurance helps to better protect European consumers and increase their confidence,

Q.

whereas insurance markets in the new Member States are steadily developing; whereas, however, in a number of these Member States, legal expenses insurance is a relatively new product that needs to be promoted, as public awareness of legal expenses insurance is comparatively low,

R.

whereas compulsory cover for legal costs should increase consumer confidence in Motor Third Party Liability insurance, particularly in cases where legal redress is sought, since consumers in many new Member States are wary of high legal fees, which would be covered by compulsory insurance,

S.

whereas compulsory legal expenses insurance would create an additional and more complex workload for the judiciary and possibly create delays in the resolution of disputes and a higher percentage of unjustified claims,

T.

whereas Motor Third Party Liability insurance and legal expenses insurance have different objectives and serve different functions, namely that while Motor Third Party Liability insurance allows consumers to meet the cost of claims made against them following a road traffic accident, legal expenses insurance covers the legal costs of pursuing a claim against a third party following a road traffic accident,

U.

whereas public campaigns by national authorities, the insurance industry and consumer organisations are important for the development of national markets,

1.

Welcomes the Commission Report and highlights the importance of including, fully and effectively, all stakeholders, in particular consumers, in the process of consultation in the development of EU policy in this field;

2.

Calls therefore for the systematic involvement of consumer organisations representing in particular victims in the process of evaluation of the effectiveness of the systems in place in the Member States;

3.

Welcomes this ex-post evaluation of legislative measures to ensure that the rules are working as intended and to highlight any unforeseen misapplications;

4.

Stresses the importance of increasing consumer confidence in motor insurance policies as regards cross-border motor vehicle travel within the EU, especially for motorists from the old Member States travelling to destinations in the new Member States and vice versa;

5.

Considers that the promotion of existing legal and market-led solutions which protect the consumer strengthen consumer confidence in motor insurance;

6.

Believes that Member States are also responsible for the good functioning of their national insurance systems in relation to EU legislation regarding the reasoned offer/reply procedure and legal costs borne by victims;

7.

Calls on the Commission to continue to closely monitor the effective functioning of market mechanisms and to report periodically to Parliament on this;

8.

Considers that the mere requirement that the insurer pay statutory interest in case of delay is not a punitive instrument, and that the Commission therefore needs to exercise greater control and take appropriate measures in this respect to ensure that in all Member States markets are working smoothly and consumers are effectively protected;

9.

Underlines that working relations between the Commission, national authorities, the insurance industry and consumers should be strengthened in order to ensure the constant provision of accurate data on the enforcement systems in place;

10.

Considers, in line with the generally established EU approach on sanctions, that the principle of subsidiarity should be applied and that there is no need for the harmonisation of national penalty provisions;

11.

Considers that national regulatory bodies are better placed to guarantee the highest possible level of consumer protection on their national markets,

12.

Recommends therefore with reference to the reasoned offer/reply procedure to leave to the discretion of Member States the imposition of sanctions and the choice of which types and levels of provision are appropriate,

13.

Calls on the Member States to ensure that in the event of non-compliance with the three-month deadline for submitting a reasoned reply to the claim for compensation or a reasoned offer of compensation, the penalties introduced are effective;

14.

Considers it advisable to carefully consider the reasons for the non-compliance of insurance companies before imposing penalties, taking account in particular of factors which do not depend on the companies themselves; hopes that the Commission will continue to monitor national markets, offering its input to those national authorities which call for its assistance;

15.

Reiterates the importance of boosting citizens' confidence in the functioning of the claims representative system by promoting it through public campaigns and by other appropriate measures;

16.

Calls on Member States and the Commission to raise consumer confidence by encouraging appropriate measures that increase awareness and use of national insurance information centres, such as requiring insurers to include the contact details of the information centre in the Member State in question in their contractual information package;

17.

Calls furthermore on Member States to require insurers, as part of the pre-contractual information package, to provide comprehensive information to consumers on how the claims representative system works and what are its uses and benefits to the insured party;

18.

Urges the Commission to continue to monitor the functioning of the system, and to coordinate and help where needed or where national authorities ask for assistance;

19.

Considers furthermore, in relation to Motor Third Party Liability insurance, that the compulsory cover of legal costs would create a clear disincentive for resorting to out-of-court settlements, would potentially increase the number of court proceedings and therefore lead to an unjustified increase in the workload for the judiciary, and would risk destabilising the functioning of the existing and evolving voluntary legal expenses insurance market;

20.

Considers therefore on balance that the negative effects of introducing a system of compulsory cover of legal costs in Motor Third Party Liability insurance would outweigh the potential benefits;

21.

Urges the Commission to take, in partnership with Member States, the further steps necessary to raise awareness of legal protection insurance, as well as other insurance products, particularly in the new Member States, focusing on informing consumers of the advantages of being offered and holding one or another type of insurance cover;

22.

Considers in this context the role of national regulatory bodies to be crucial for the implementation of best practices from other Member States;

23.

Calls therefore on the Commission to strengthen consumer protection primarily by urging Member States to encourage their national regulatory bodies and national insurance companies to raise awareness of the availability of voluntary legal expenses insurance;

24.

Considers that pre-contractual information on motor insurance could include information concerning the option to take out legal expenses coverage;

25.

Calls on Member States to urge national regulatory bodies and intermediaries to inform customers of possible risks and of additional voluntary insurance which might benefit them, such as, for example, legal expenses insurance, assistance cover and insurance for theft;

26.

Calls on those Member States that do not have established alternative dispute resolution systems for settling claims to consider introducing such systems based on best practice from other Member States;

27.

Asks the Commission not to prejudge the outcome of the studies commissioned on differential personal injury damages following on from the adoption of the Rome II Regulation (2), which studies may suggest an insurance-based solution and consequent amendment of the Fourth motor insurance Directive;

28.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/13

A.

whereas tax fraud has serious consequences for Member States' budgets and the European Union's resource system, leads to violations of the principle of fair and transparent taxation, and is liable to bring about distortions of competition, thereby affecting the operation of the internal market; whereas honest businesses have competitive disadvantages because of tax fraud, and the loss of tax revenue is ultimately replenished by the European taxpayer through other forms of taxation,

B.

whereas fiscal fraud jeopardises equity and fiscal justice, since the loss of income to public finance is often compensated for by increases in tax, which hit the least affluent and most honest taxpayers who do not have the option or the intention of evading or infringing their tax obligations,

C.

whereas the growth of cross-border trade triggered by the establishment of the internal market has resulted in an increasing number of transactions in which the place of taxation and the place of establishment of the person liable to pay the VAT are in two different Member States,

D.

whereas those using new forms of tax fraud linked to cross-border transactions, such as carousel or missing-trader intra-Community fraud, have taken advantage of the fragmentation and loopholes of the current tax systems, and whereas changes in the way that VAT operates are necessary,

E.

whereas VAT evasion and fraud have an impact on the financing of the budget of the European Union, as they result in an increased need to call on Member States' own resources based on gross national income,

F.

whereas combating fraud, while for the most part within Member State competence, is not a problem that can be solved at national level alone,

G.

whereas globalisation has led to increasing difficulties in combating fiscal fraud at an international level, given the increased involvement of undertakings established in third countries in carousel fraud, the expansion of electronic commerce and the globalisation of the services markets; whereas those factors militate strongly in favour of improving international cooperation, in particular as regards VAT,

H.

whereas the extent of tax fraud in the European Union is due to the current transitional system of VAT, which is too complex, making intra-Community transactions difficult to track, opaque and thus open to abuse,

I.

whereas when examining options to tackle fiscal fraud, the Commission and the Member States should, to the greatest extent possible, avoid measures that could lead to a disproportionate administrative burden on businesses and tax administrations or that could discriminate between traders,

J.

whereas both the Commission and the Court of Auditors have consistently stated that the system for exchanging information between Member States on intra-Community supplies of goods does not provide relevant or timely information for tackling VAT fraud efficiently; whereas this calls for clearer and more binding rules on cooperation between Member States and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF),

K.

whereas the use of all available technologies, including the electronic storage and transmission of certain data for VAT and excise duties, is indispensable for the proper functioning of Member States' tax systems; whereas the conditions for the exchange of, and direct access of Member States to, electronically stored data in each Member State should be improved; whereas Member States' tax authorities should handle personal data with due care for specified purposes and on the basis of the consent of the person concerned or some other legitimate basis laid down by law,

L.

whereas traders can often obtain only very fragmented information on the VAT status of their customers,

M.

whereas the strengthening of the means of detecting tax fraud should be accompanied by the reinforcement of the existing legislation on assistance in the recovery of taxes, equality in tax treatment and practicability for businesses,

1.

Notes that the purpose of an EU fiscal fraud strategy must be to tackle tax losses due to fiscal fraud by identifying the areas in which improvements to both EC legislation and administrative cooperation between Member States can be made, which effectively promote the reduction of tax fraud, to the greatest extent possible without creating unnecessary burdens both for tax administrations and tax payers;

2.

Calls on the Member States finally to take the fight against fiscal fraud seriously;

3.

Recalls that the establishment of a VAT system based on the ‘origin principle’, which implies that transactions between Member States liable to VAT bear the tax charged in the country of origin rather than being zero-rated, remains a long-term solution for combating tax fraud effectively; notes that the ‘origin principle’ would make it unnecessary to exempt from VAT goods traded in the internal market and to tax them subsequently in the country of destination; recalls that in order to be operational, a VAT system based on the ‘origin principle’ requires the establishment of a clearing system, as originally proposed by the Commission in 1987;

4.

Regrets the blockading attitude of some Member States in the last ten years, which has thwarted any effective EU strategy to counter fiscal fraud;

5.

Regrets that in spite of repeated analyses, demands, and objections, the Council has not yet adopted an effective strategy for the fight against fiscal fraud;

6.

Urges the Commission not to desist from tackling the problem head-on, despite repeated failures in past decades;

7.

Acknowledges that estimates of overall (direct and indirect) tax losses due to fiscal fraud range from EUR 200 to 250 billion, which is equal to 2 to 2,25 % of GDP in the European Union, EUR 40 billion of that being due to VAT fraud, estimated to comprise 10 % of VAT receipts, 8 % of the total excise duty receipts on alcoholic beverages in 1998 and 9 % of the total excise duty receipts on tobacco products; regrets, however, that no precise figures are available because national reporting standards vary so widely;

8.

Calls for a uniform data survey in all the Member States as the basis for transparency and national measures against tax fraud;

9.

Regrets, due to the lack of data collected at national level, that the real extent of the problem cannot be properly assessed and the monitoring of changes, whether positive or negative, cannot be properly evaluated;

10.

Calls on the Commission to consider a harmonised European system for collecting data and producing statistics on fiscal fraud, so as to reach an assessment of the full extent of the phenomenon that is as accurate as possible;

11.

Recalls that the elimination of the informal economy cannot be realised without the implementation of appropriate incentives; suggests, moreover, that Member States should report, via the Lisbon scoreboard, the extent to which they have succeeded in reducing their informal economies;

12.

Notes that VAT-related tax fraud is a matter of particular concern for the functioning of the internal market in so far as it has a direct cross-border impact, involves substantial loss of revenue and directly affects the EU budget;

13.

Reiterates that the current VAT system, established in 1993, was intended to be only a transitional system and that Parliament has requested that the Commission put forward proposals aimed at making a final decision on the definitive VAT system by 2010;

14.

Asserts that the free circulation of persons, goods, services and capital within the internal market since 1993, as well as advances in new technology as regards small, high-value goods, have combined to make it increasingly difficult to combat VAT fraud, this being exacerbated by the complexity and fragmented nature of the current system which makes transactions difficult to track and thus more open to abuse;

15.

Notes the increasing occurrence of missing-trader fraud and the deliberate abuse of the VAT system by criminal gangs who set up such schemes to take advantage of the failures in the system; and highlights the VAT carousel fraud case launched by Eurojust, involving 18 Member States and tax fraud amounting to an estimated EUR 2,1 billion;

16.

Supports the Commission in its efforts to bring about a fundamental change to the current VAT system; welcomes the fact that Member States do now regard this as a matter of some priority and urges Member States to be prepared to take substantive measures in this context;

17.

Considers the current system to be outdated and in need of radical overhaul without over-burdening honest businesses with red tape; believes that maintaining the status quo is not an option;

18.

Notes that in a reverse-charge system VAT is accounted for by the taxable customer instead of the supplier; recognises that that system has the advantage of removing the opportunity to engage in missing-trader fraud, by designating the taxable person to whom the goods are supplied as the person liable to pay the VAT;

19.

Notes that the creation of a double-VAT system would run counter to the efficient operation of the internal market and would be the source of a more complex environment that could discourage business investment, which would be overcome in the long term only by a generalised, mandatory reverse-charge system, as opposed to an optional or selected supplies-only system;

20.

Notes, furthermore, that the reverse-charge system does not allow for fractionated payment and that total VAT is paid only at the end of the supply chain, removing the self-policing control mechanism of VAT; warns that new forms of fraud may appear including increased tax losses at the retail level and the misuse of VAT identification numbers, and that combating such fraud through the introduction of additional verification could result in additional administrative burdens for honest traders; consequently urges caution and serious consideration before the introduction of a reverse-charge system; notes, nevertheless, that the application of a threshold in order to limit the risk of untaxed final consumption helps combat fraud and considers the EUR 5 000 threshold suggested by the Council to be reasonable;

21.

Notes, while remaining wary and critical, that a pilot project may help Member States better to understand the inherent risks of the reverse-charge system, and urges the Commission and the Member States to lay down appropriate guarantees to ensure that neither the participating Member State nor any other Member State is exposed to major risks during the operation of the pilot project;

22.

Believes that the best solution to tackling VAT fraud related to cross-border supplies would be to introduce a system in which the VAT exemption for intra-Community supplies is replaced by taxation at the rate of 15 %; notes that the operation of such a system would be better served if the variety and complexity of reduced rates were substantially simplified, minimising the administrative burden on both businesses and tax authorities; notes that individual reductions of VAT rates put in place before 1992 should be carefully examined and assessed with respect to whether their persistence is justified on economic grounds;

23.

Recognises that because of differential VAT rates, the taxation of intra-Community supplies would require rebalancing payments between Member States; considers that such rebalancing should be made through a clearing house that would facilitate the passing of revenue between Member States; stresses that the operation of a clearing house is technically feasible;

24.

Believes that a decentralised clearing house system may be more appropriate and could be developed more rapidly, in so far as it opens up possibilities for Member States to agree details of importance bilaterally, taking into account their individual balance of trade, similarities in the operation of their VAT system and control mechanisms, and mutual trust;

25.

Emphasises that it should be the responsibility of the tax administration of the Member State of supply to collect the VAT from its supplier and to make a transfer via the clearing system to the tax administration where the intra-Community acquisition has taken place; recognises that it is necessary to build mutual trust between tax administrations;

26.

Stresses that Member States cannot combat cross-border tax fraud in isolation; believes that exchanges of information and cooperation between Member States and with the Commission have been insufficient to combat tax fraud effectively as regards either substance or speed; considers that direct contact between local or national anti-fraud offices is neither developed nor sufficiently implemented, leading to inefficiency, under-use of the arrangements for administrative cooperation and delays in communication;

27.

Insists that in order to protect the fiscal revenue of all the Member States in relation to the internal market, Member States should take comparable measures against fraudsters, regardless of where losses of revenue take place; calls on the Commission to propose possible mechanisms to promote such cooperation between Member States;

28.

Welcomes the Commission's proposals for the amendment of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (2) and Council Regulation (EC) No 1798/2003 of 7 October 2003 on administrative cooperation in the field of value added tax (3) to speed up the collection and exchange of information on intra-Community transactions from 2010 onwards; recognises that the proposed reporting rules of one month will add an administrative burden to businesses that provide only services which are presently not subject to that rule, but accepts that this is necessary in view of the possibility of carousel fraud in some services;

29.

Urges the Council to adopt proposed measures quickly and invites the Commission to submit further proposals on the automated access by all other Member States to certain non-sensitive data held by Member States on their own taxable persons (such as, in the business sector, certain data concerning turnover), and on the harmonisation of the procedures for the registration and de-registration of persons liable for VAT to ensure the swift detection and de-registration of fake taxable persons; stresses that Member States must take responsibility for keeping their data up to date, in particular, as regards de-registration and the detection of fraudulent registrations;

30.

Recalls that tax havens might represent a barrier to the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, if they put excessive downward pressure on tax rates and, in general, on tax revenues;

31.

Stresses also that in times of budgetary discipline any erosion of the fiscal base will jeopardise Member States' ability to comply with the reformed Stability and Growth Pact;

32.

Stresses that removing tax havens requires, inter alia, a three-pronged strategy: tackling tax avoidance, widening the scope of Council Directive 2003/48/EC of 3 June 2003 on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments (4) and requesting that the OECD, through its members, sanction non-cooperative tax havens;

33.

Regrets that the Member States are hindering reform of the Directive 2003/48/EC by their continual new objections and delaying tactics and urges the Commission to put forward its proposals as soon as possible in spite of the signs of resistance;

34.

Points out that reform of Directive 2003/48/EC must tackle its various loopholes and deficiencies, as they prevent discovery of tax evasion and fiscal fraud operations;

35.

Calls on the Commission, in the context of reform of Directive 2003/48/EC, to examine options for reform, including investigating some widening of the scope of the Directive with regard to types of legal entity and sources of financial revenue;

36.

Urges the European Union to keep the elimination of tax havens at a worldwide level on the agenda, having regard to their detrimental effects on the tax revenue of individual Member States; invites the Council and the Commission to use the leverage of EU trade power when negotiating trade and cooperation agreements with the governments of tax havens, in order to persuade them to eliminate tax provisions and practices that favour tax evasion and fraud; welcomes, as a first step, the recommendations set out in the Council conclusions following its meeting on 14 May 2008 to include in trade agreements a clause on good governance in tax matters; asks the Commission to put forward such a clause with immediate effect in its negotiations of future trade agreements;

37.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/19

A.

whereas there are more than 100 million Europeans of all ages, beliefs and nationalities who volunteer,

B.

whereas a Eurobarometer survey published in February 2007 revealed that 3 out of 10 Europeans claim to be active in a voluntary capacity and that close to 80 % of respondents feel that voluntary activities are an important part of democratic life in Europe (3),

C.

whereas the voluntary sector contributes an estimated 5 % to the gross domestic product of Member States' economies, and develops innovative actions to detect, voice and respond to needs arising in society,

D.

whereas the European Volunteer Centre, the European Youth Forum, the Association of Voluntary Service Organisations, the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, the Red Cross/European Union Office, volonteurope, the European Older People's Platform (AGE), Solidar, Caritas Europa, ENGAGE, Johanniter International, the European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation and others — together representing thousands of organisations involving millions of volunteers — have all called upon the institutions of the European Union to announce 2011 as the European Year of Volunteering,

1.

Calls upon the Commission, supported by all the institutions of the EU, to announce 2011 as the European Year of Volunteering;

2.

Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission and the Council.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/21

A.

whereas, the Commission in its White Paper ‘A new impetus for European youth’ (COM(2001)0681), which Parliament examined in its resolution of 14 May 2002 (1), adopted the objective of devoting more attention to young people in other policy fields, especially education and lifelong learning, employment, social integration, health, youth autonomy, mobility, fundamental rights and non-discrimination,

B.

whereas the European Council of 22-23 March 2005 adopted a ‘European Youth Pact’ as one of the instruments contributing to the Lisbon objectives, and renewed its commitment in March 2008, insisting on the need to invest in youth now and in the future,

C.

whereas the Commission reflected the need for the mainstreaming of youth issues in its Communication of 5 September 2007 on ‘Promoting young people's full participation in education, employment and society’ (COM(2007)0498),

D.

whereas it adopted its resolutions of 19 June 2007 on a regulatory framework for measures enabling young women in the European Union to combine family life with a period of studies (2) and of 21 February 2008 on the demographic future of Europe (3), thus highlighting the need to take greater account of youth,

1.

Calls on the Commission, when preparing legislative proposals, to consider and incorporate the impact on youth and the results of the structured dialogue with youth organisations, in particular in the policy fields referred to in recital A;

2.

Calls on the Member States to focus on youth when implementing the Lisbon national reform programmes and to take youth into account in the relevant policy fields;

3.

Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council, the Commission and the European Youth Forum.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/23

A.

whereas the abduction of a child is amongst the most inhumane of crimes,

B.

whereas the commission of such crimes is increasing in Europe and may involve transporting victims across state borders,

C.

whereas the prospects of saving the life of an abducted child decrease as time passes,

D.

whereas there is no Europe-wide system of alert for child disappearances nor any local or national systems throughout much of the European Union,

1.

Calls on Member States to introduce a missing child alert system, which, when activated, would require the immediate forwarding to the relevant news media, border authorities and customs and law enforcement agencies of:

2.

Calls on the Member States to reach cooperation agreements with all bordering states to ensure the capability of raising an alert rapidly across any relevant territories;

3.

Calls for the development of a common organisation to provide assistance and training to national bodies;

4.

Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council and the Commission.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/26

A.

whereas the EU remains committed to supporting the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders,

B.

whereas the distribution of Russian passports to citizens in South Ossetia and support for the separatist movement, together with increased military activity by separatists against villages with Georgian populations, have increased the tensions in South Ossetia, combined with large-scale Russian military manoeuvres close to the border with Georgia during July 2008,

C.

whereas, after several weeks of increased tension and skirmishing between the parties, and provocations by the South Ossetian separatist forces involving bomb attacks, deadly clashes, shoot-outs and shellings which caused the deaths of many civilians and left many more injured, during the night of 7/8 August 2008 the Georgian army launched a surprise artillery attack on Tskhinvali followed by a ground operation using both tanks and soldiers aimed at regaining control over South Ossetia,

D.

whereas Russia responded immediately, after a long-term military build-up, with a massive counter-attack, sending in tanks and ground troops, bombing several locations in Georgia, including the town of Gori, and blocking Georgian Black Sea ports,

E.

whereas about 158 000 people were uprooted by the crisis and forced to leave their homes and must now be assisted in their efforts to return; whereas the presence of cluster munitions, unexploded ordnance and landmines, as well as the Russian warnings and the lack of cooperation, make any such return unsafe,

F.

whereas the infrastructure of Georgia has been heavily damaged by the Russian military actions and whereas humanitarian aid is needed,

G.

whereas international human rights researchers and military analysts have documented the use by Russian troops of cluster munitions in Georgia, which has left thousands of items of unexploded ordnance in the conflict areas; whereas Georgia has also admitted to the use of cluster bombs in South Ossetia near the Roki tunnel,

H.

whereas on 12 August 2008 the Presidents of Georgia and Russia committed themselves to an agreement on the basis of the mediation efforts carried out by the EU providing for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Georgian and Russian forces to their positions prior to 7 August 2008 and the opening of international talks on an international mechanism to be set up rapidly in order to prepare for a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict,

I.

whereas on 19 August 2008 NATO suspended regular top-level ties with Russia, saying that Russia's military action had been ‘disproportionate’ and ‘inconsistent with its peacekeeping role in parts of Georgia’ and that ‘business as usual’ could not continue while Russian troops remained in Georgia,

J.

whereas on 22 August 2008 Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from their most advanced positions in Georgia, but still controls access to the port city of Poti, south of Abkhazia, and the Russian Government announced that it would keep troops in a security zone around South Ossetia, establishing eight checkpoints at which Russian troops will be deployed,

K.

whereas on 25 August 2008 Russia's upper house of parliament adopted a resolution asking the President to recognise the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which was followed on 26 August 2008 by President Dmitry Medvedev's decision that Russia would formally recognise the two regions as independent states,

L.

whereas this conflict has far-reaching implications for regional stability and security, going well beyond the direct relationship between all sides in the conflict, with possible repercussions for the EU-Russia relationship, the ENP, the Black Sea region and beyond,

M.

whereas the EU must maintain full political unity in response to the crisis in Georgia and must speak with one voice, in particular in its relations with Russia; whereas the process towards a peaceful and stable solution to the conflicts in Georgia and in the Caucasus will demand a comprehensive revision of the ENP and a new engagement with the whole region, in cooperation with all European and international organisations, notably the OSCE,

N.

whereas last week the Georgian Government broke off diplomatic relations with Russia and the Russian Federation responded by doing the same,

1.

Takes the view that there cannot be a military solution to the conflicts in the Caucasus and expresses its firm condemnation of all those who resorted to force and violence in order to change the situation in the Georgian breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia;

2.

Calls on Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Georgia and the inviolability of its internationally recognised borders, and therefore strongly condemns the recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as contrary to international law;

3.

Points out that any decision on the final status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia must be conditional on compliance with the basic principles of international law, including the 1975 Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Final Act), with regard, in particular, to the return of refugees and respect for their property and guarantees of, and respect for, minority rights;

4.

Condemns the unacceptable and disproportionate military action by Russia and its deep incursion into Georgia, which violates international law; underlines that there is no legitimate reason for Russia to invade Georgia, to occupy parts of it and to threaten to override the government of a democratic country;

5.

Deplores the loss of life and human suffering caused by the use of indiscriminate force by all parties engaged in the conflict;

6.

Expresses deep concern at the effect of Russian mines on the social and economic activity of Georgia, in particular with regard to the blowing-up of a railway bridge near Kaspi on the main rail link from Tbilisi to Poti on 16 August 2008 and the explosion caused near Gori on 24 August 2008 to the fuel train carrying crude oil from Kazakhstan for export through Poti; underlines that both actions violated the ceasefire commitment;

7.

Reiterates its firm belief in the principle that no third country has a veto over the sovereign decision of another country to join any international organisation or alliance or the right to destabilise a democratically elected government;

8.

Stresses that the partnership between Europe and Russia must be based on respect for the fundamental rules of European cooperation, upheld not just in words but in action;

9.

Praises the EU Presidency for the efficiency and speed with which it has reacted to this conflict and the unity shown by the Member States in mediating between the two sides, enabling them to sign a ceasefire peace plan; welcomes in this regard the conclusions of the abovementioned extraordinary meeting of the European Council;

10.

Strongly urges Russia to honour all its commitments under the ceasefire agreement reached and signed through the diplomatic efforts of the EU, beginning with the complete and immediate withdrawal of its troops from Georgia proper and the reduction of its military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to the Russian force deployed as peacekeepers in the two provinces before the conflict erupted; condemns the extensive looting perpetrated by the Russian invasion forces and accompanying mercenaries;

11.

Demands that an independent international investigation be carried out as a matter of urgency in order to establish the facts and bring greater clarity to certain allegations;

12.

Urges Georgia, which ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Russian authorities to lend support to and fully cooperate with the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC as regards its investigation into the tragic events and the attacks against civilians which took place during the conflict in order to determine responsibility and bring those responsible to justice;

13.

Calls on the Russian and Georgian authorities to provide full information concerning the areas where their armed forces dropped cluster bombs so that an immediate start can be made on de-mining operations and in order to prevent further casualties among innocent civilians and facilitate the safe return of displaced persons;

14.

Calls on the EU and NATO and its members to use, on the basis of a common position, all possibilities to persuade the Russian Government to abide by international law, which is the necessary condition for playing a responsible role in the international community; reminds Russia of its responsibility as a UN veto power for a global order of peace;

15.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to review their policy towards Russia should Russia not fulfil its commitments under the ceasefire agreement; supports in consequence the decision of the European Council to postpone the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement negotiations until the withdrawal of the Russian troops to their positions prior to 7 August 2008;

16.

Calls on the Commission to propose visa facilitation and readmission agreements with Georgia at least equivalent to those for Russia;

17.

Calls on the Member States to review the issuing of visas for economic activities based in South Ossetia and Abkhazia;

18.

Strongly condemns the forced resettlement of Georgians from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and calls on the de facto South Ossetian and Abkhazian authorities to guarantee the safe return of the displaced civilian population, in line with international humanitarian law;

19.

Welcomes the initiatives taken by the OSCE to increase the number of unarmed observers; calls for a further strengthening of the OSCE Georgia Mission, with full freedom of movement throughout the country, and encourages the EU Member States to make a contribution to these efforts;

20.

Calls for a robust contribution by the EU to the planned international mechanism for the resolution of the conflict and therefore welcomes the decision of the European Council to deploy an ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) monitoring mission to complement the UN and OSCE missions and to ask for a UN or OSCE mandate for an ESDP peace mission;

21.

Welcomes the EU's active and continued support for all international efforts to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict, in particular the Council's commitment to supporting all UN, OSCE and other efforts to settle the conflict; welcomes in particular the decision to appoint an EU Special Representative for the crisis in Georgia;

22.

Welcomes the Commission's EUR 6 million fast-track humanitarian aid package for civilians, which must be bolstered by further funds on the basis of a needs assessment on the ground; notes the urgent need for reconstruction aid in the aftermath of the conflict;

23.

Welcomes the Council's decision to convene an international donors' conference for the reconstruction of Georgia, and urges the Council and the Commission to examine the possibility of a major EU plan to provide financial support for the rebuilding of the affected areas of Georgia and to establish a stronger EU presence in the country and throughout the region;

24.

Calls on all parties to the conflict to allow full and unfettered access for humanitarian assistance to victims, including refugees and internally displaced persons;

25.

Takes the view that the search for solutions to the conflict in Georgia, along with the other unresolved conflicts in the South Caucasus, will benefit from increased internationalisation of conflict resolution mechanisms; proposes therefore that the EU convene a ‘Trans-Caucasian Conference for Peace’ as a key element of this process; considers that such a conference should discuss international guarantees concerning full respect for civil and political rights and the promotion of democracy through the international rule of law; stresses that the conference should also provide an opportunity to listen to the voice of the unrepresented or silenced groups of the Caucasian region;

26.

Calls on the Council and Commission to develop the ENP further by making it better adapted to the needs of our eastern partners, including a strengthening of EU involvement in the Black Sea region, to take up Parliament's proposal for a European Economic Area Plus or the Swedish-Polish proposal for an Eastern Partnership and to speed up, in relation to Georgia, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova in particular, the establishment of a free trade zone; notes that liberalisation of EU visa policy towards these countries must take account of the fact that Russia has been granted better conditions in this area than they have;

27.

Stresses the interrelatedness of a number of problems in the South Caucasus region and the need for a comprehensive solution in the form of a stability pact, with the involvement of the major external actors; underlines the need to enhance cooperation with the neighbouring countries of the Black Sea region by setting up a special institutional and multilateral mechanism such as a Union for the Black Sea, and organising an international security and cooperation conference on the South Caucasus region; asks the Commission, therefore, to make a specific proposal to Parliament and the Council on the setting-up of a multilateral framework for the Black Sea region, including Turkey and Ukraine; considers that neighbouring countries, such as Kazakhstan, should be involved in the interests of the whole region's stability and energy flows;

28.

Recalls that at the Bucharest Summit on 3 April 2008 NATO agreed that Georgia would become a member of the Alliance;

29.

Stresses the importance of Georgia in improving EU energy security by providing an alternative to the Russian energy transit route; considers it crucial that existing infrastructure such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline be effectively protected, and calls on the Commission to offer Georgia all necessary assistance to this end; expects a strong EU political and budgetary commitment in pursuing the Nabucco pipeline project, recognised as an EU priority project that would cross Georgia's territory and representing the most serious alternative to the projects undertaken in cooperation with Russia which will all potentially increase the economic and political dependence of Member States on Russia;

30.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to continue their efforts to adopt the EU common energy policy which, inter alia, caters for the need to diversify sources of supply;

31.

Takes the view that cooperation in the South Caucasus should not be about mutually exclusive zones of influence between the EU and Russia (so-called ‘spheres of interest’);

32.

Takes the view that the role of the EU in the current crisis underlines the need to strengthen the European foreign, defence and security policy, and believes that the Treaty of Lisbon, including the creation of the position of High Representative, the solidarity clause and the EU Energy Security Policy, represents the right way of doing this;

33.

Stresses the need to safeguard stability in the South Caucasus region and calls on the Armenian and Azerbaijani Governments to contribute to achieving this aim, while respecting all their international commitments;

34.

Reaffirms the principle that pluralistic and democratic governance, with functioning opposition parties and respect for human and civil rights, constitutes the best guarantee for stability in the entire South Caucasus region;

35.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Member States, the Presidents and Parliaments of Georgia and the Russian Federation, NATO, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/31

A.

whereas the academic Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) (8) was submitted to the Commission at the end of 2007,

B.

whereas the DCFR is currently undergoing a process of evaluation by a network of several academic groups, including the ‘Association Henri Capitant des amis de la culture juridique française’ and the ‘Société de législation comparée’, which have already published ‘Principes contractuels communs’ and ‘Terminologie contractuelle commune’ (9),

C.

whereas the Commission has launched an internal selection process with the aim of identifying which parts of the DCFR will be integrated into a forthcoming document, e.g. a Commission White Paper on a Common Frame of Reference (CFR),

D.

whereas the DCFR is merely an academic document and the possible selection of what parts of the DCFR are to be integrated into the forthcoming Commission document is a highly political exercise,

1.

Welcomes the presentation of the DCFR and awaits the final academic DCFR to be submitted to the Commission by the end of December 2008;

2.

Calls on the Commission to present a precise and transparent plan as to how the selection process leading to the Commission document will be organised and coordinated, in particular with regard to all Directorates-General (DGs) involved;

3.

Calls on the Commission to ensure that the DCFR is made available in the greatest possible number of relevant languages in order to ensure its accessibility for all interested stakeholders;

4.

Calls on the Commission to consider assigning the project to DG Justice, Freedom and Security with the full involvement of all other relevant DGs, since the CFR goes well beyond consumer contract law, and to make the necessary materials and human resources available;

5.

Points out that the Commission document will be the basis for the decision of the European Institutions and all interested stakeholders on the future purpose of the CFR, its content and legal effect, which may range from a non-binding legislative tool to the foundation for an optional instrument in European contract law;

6.

Considers that, regardless of the future shape of the CFR, measures must be put in place to ensure that it is regularly updated in order to reflect changes and national developments in contract law;

7.

Points out that, when taking any decision about the content of the CFR, the Commission should bear in mind the Council's statement of 18 April 2008 that the CFR should be ‘a tool for better lawmaking’, forming ‘a set of non-binding guidelines to be used by lawmakers at Community level’;

8.

Suggests that, if this is the case, the CFR should be as wide-ranging as possible and that there may be no need to exclude any content or materials at this stage;

9.

Emphasises once again that the outcome of the recent CFR workshops should be reflected in any selection process;s emphasises that further consultations should be broad and guarantee a balanced input of all relevant stakeholders;

10.

Suggests that, if used as a non-binding legislative tool, the relevant parts of the CFR should be appended to any future legislative proposal or communication made by the Commission which touches on contract law, so as to ensure that this is considered by the Community legislature;

11.

Points out that, when taking a decision about the content of the CFR, the Commission should bear in mind that the CFR could go well beyond a mere legislative tool and could result in an optional instrument;

12.

Suggests that, if the future format of the CFR is likely to be that of an optional instrument, it should confine itself to those areas where the Community legislature has been active or is likely to be active in the near future, or which are closely linked to contract law; suggests that any optional instrument should be based on the DCFR; considers that, in all instances, care should be taken to ensure that the overall coherence of the optional instrument is not jeopardised by the selection process;

13.

Insists that Parliament should be fully consulted and involved in any selection process leading to the Commission's forthcoming document on the CFR;

14.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/33

A.

whereas Article 195 of the EC Treaty empowers the European Ombudsman to receive complaints from any citizen of the Union concerning instances of maladministration in the activities of the Community institutions or bodies,

B.

whereas complaints submitted by citizens constitute an important source of information on possible infringements of Community law,

C.

whereas under Article 211 of the EC Treaty the Commission in its role as guardian of the Treaties is responsible for ensuring that the provisions of the Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied,

D.

whereas, pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 226 of the EC Treaty, if the Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under the Treaty, it ‘shall’ deliver a reasoned opinion on the matter after giving the State concerned the opportunity to submit its observations, and whereas, pursuant to the second paragraph of that article, if the State concerned does not comply with the opinion within the period laid down by the Commission, the latter ‘may’ bring the matter before the Court of Justice,

E.

whereas the Ombudsman has previously emphasised, in his Decision on complaint 995/98/OV, that, even though the Commission enjoys discretionary powers with respect to the opening of infringement procedures, these are nevertheless subject to legal limits ‘established by the case law of the Court of Justice which requires, for example, that administrative authorities should act consistently and in good faith, avoid discrimination, comply with the principles of proportionality, equality and legitimate expectations and respect human rights and fundamental freedoms’,

F.

whereas the Commission has stressed that this role is essential to the interests of European citizens, and has recognised the importance of the rule of law in this context (3),

G.

whereas the Commission confirms that its abovementioned communication of 20 March 2002 sets out the administrative measures for the benefit of the complainant with which the Commission undertakes to comply when handling his/her complaint and assessing the infringement in question,

H.

whereas the Ombudsman considers that the Commission's failure to decide on a definitive position as regards the complainant's infringement complaint constitutes an instance of maladministration,

I.

whereas the Ombudsman's recommendation to the Commission is that it should deal with the complainant's complaint as rapidly and diligently as possible,

1.

Endorses the European Ombudsman's recommendation to the Commission;

2.

Stresses that the way in which the Commission handles complaints submitted by citizens in which an infringement of Community law by Member States is alleged should always be in conformity with principles of good administration;

3.

Points out that, in its abovementioned communication of 20 March 2002, the Commission has entered into certain commitments as regards its handling of infringement complaints;

4.

Points out that the Commission has indicated in that communication that, as a general rule, it will decide whether to open infringement proceedings or to close the file within one year from the date of registration of the complaint and that it will inform the complainant in writing when this time-limit is exceeded;

5.

Accepts that in difficult and complicated cases the Commission's investigations may require more than one year; considers, however, that exceeding the one-year time-limit is justified only when investigations are indeed still ongoing;

6.

Notes that in the present case concerning the German Government's failure to properly apply the Working Time Directive (4) the Commission intended to deal with the complaint in the light of its proposal for an amendment of the Directive and decided to await the outcome of the discussions on its proposal with the other Community institutions;

7.

Recalls that that proposal was submitted in September 2004 and that there is no evidence that the Commission has taken any further steps since then in order to proceed with its investigation;

8.

Notes that instead of taking one of two possible decisions — either to initiate formal infringement proceedings or to close the case — the Commission abstained from taking any further action as regards its investigation;

9.

Is of the opinion that Community law does not envisage the possibility of disregarding existing laws and judgments on the grounds that new rules are being considered; points out that the Commission also failed to deal with issues in the complaint that are not related to the proposed changes to the applicable Directive;

10.

Acknowledges that the Commission has certain discretionary powers with regard to the management of complaints and infringement proceedings, in particular as regards bringing matters before the Court of Justice, but points out that Article 226 of the EC Treaty stipulates that the Commission is to initiate the pre-litigation phase if it considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under the Treaty;

11.

Is of the opinion that those discretionary powers are also subject to legal limits set by general principles of administrative law, as established by the case-law of the Court of Justice, and should not exceed the limits indicated by the Commission itself in its abovementioned communication of 20 March 2002;

12.

Restates its concern at the unjustified and excessive amount of time — often spanning several years — which the Commission takes to pursue and conclude infringement proceedings and its dissatisfaction with the frequent examples of non-compliance by Member States with decisions of the Court of Justice; considers that this undermines the credibility of the formulation and coherent application of Community law and that it serves to discredit the objectives of the EU;

13.

Emphasises once again the key role of the Member States in correctly implementing Community legislation and underlines the fact that the practical application thereof is decisive for the purposes of increasing the relevance of the European Union for its citizens;

14.

Asks the Commission to provide a list naming the Member States whose legislation is not in line with all provisions of the Working Time Directive and specifying the action it is taking with regard to this; urges the Commission to take prompt action, in accordance with its prerogatives, in all cases and in all Member States where the transposition or implementation of the Directive does not comply with the law laid down by the legislature and by the Court of Justice;

15.

Urges the Commission to analyse forthwith the new German law adopted on 1 January 2004, and which came into effect on 1 January 2007, in order to establish whether it is in line with all the provisions of the Working Time Directive and all applicable judgments of the Court of Justice; underlines the need for the Commission to examine the details of the implementation of that Directive;

16.

Notes that the Commission has recently revised its guidelines on infringement procedures; understands from this document that a list of the decisions will be provided in advance to the Permanent Representatives and the Member States and that press releases on adopted infringement decisions may be issued on the day of formal adoption; notes, however, that no provision is made to inform Parliament or its responsible committees;

17.

Reiterates its urgent call on the Commission to keep Parliament, and in particular its Committee on Petitions, fully informed of decisions in infringement files at all stages of the procedure;

18.

Stresses that, under Article 230 of the EC Treaty, Parliament has the right to bring actions before the Court of Justice under the same conditions as the Council and the Commission and that Parliament, pursuant to Article 201 of the Treaty, is empowered to exercise control over the activities of the Commission;

19.

Also urges all the Member States, in the light of the foregoing, to apply faithfully all the rules relating to health and safety at work on the basis of the principle that, in the event of any doubt, the interpretation of the law which is most favourable to the health and safety of workers should prevail (in dubio pro operario);

20.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the European Ombudsman.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/35

A.

whereas equality between women and men is a fundamental principle of the EU, recognised by the Treaty establishing the European Community and by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; whereas in spite of the significant progress made in this field, many inequalities between women and men remain,

B.

whereas violence against women is a major hindrance to equality between women and men and is one of the most widespread human rights violations, knowing no geographical, economic, or social limits; whereas the number of women who are victims of violence is alarming,

C.

whereas the term ‘violence against women’ is to be understood as any act of gender-based violence which results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm to or suffering of women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or the arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life,

D.

whereas trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation is an unacceptable violation of human rights, and is a modern form of slavery closely linked to other forms of criminality which significantly undermines all efforts for achieving equality between women and men,

E.

whereas the promotion of a flexible enterprise policy on the labour market must not focus primarily on the requirements of companies or public administrations, but must first and foremost take as its starting point the time that women and men need to be able to take seriously their respective duties within their families,

F.

whereas neither specific gender guidelines nor the equal opportunities pillar remains in the European employment strategy,

G.

whereas gender gaps in employment indicate persistence of both qualitative and quantitative disparities between women and men,

H.

whereas the pay gap has remained steady at 15 % since 2003 and has narrowed by only one percentage point since 2000,

I.

whereas sectoral and occupational segregation between women and men is not diminishing and is even increasing in certain countries,

J.

whereas women's participation in decision making is a decisive indicator of equality between women and men; whereas the presence of female managers in companies and universities remains slight and the number of female politicians and researchers is rising only very slowly,

K.

whereas the stereotypes which still exist with regard to the educational and occupational options available to women help to perpetuate inequalities,

L.

whereas the Lisbon targets on generating growth and promoting the social market economy can be met only by making full use of the significant potential of women in the labour market,

M.

whereas there is a risk of ‘enforced’ part-time work, particularly for women, a choice often forced on them by a lack of affordable childcare facilities,

N.

whereas a number of challenges and difficulties affect women more than men, notably quality of employment, the situation of ‘helping’ spouses in areas such as agriculture or fisheries and small family businesses, health and safety at work and maternity protection, as well as their being at a higher risk of poverty,

O.

whereas, for both men and women, employment rates are lower in rural areas, and, in addition, a lot of women are never active in the official labour market and, therefore, are neither registered as unemployed nor included in unemployment statistics, which leads to particular financial and legal problems in relation to the right to maternity and sick leave, the acquisition of pension rights and access to social security, as well as problems in the event of divorce; whereas rural areas are badly affected by the lack of high-quality employment opportunities,

P.

whereas the conditions of some groups of women who often face several combined difficulties and risks as well as double discrimination — in particular disabled women, women with dependants, elderly women, minority and immigrant women and women prisoners — show signs of deterioration,

Q.

whereas gaps between women and men persist in all other aspects of work quality, e.g. reconciling professional and private life, working arrangements which do not fully exploit people's skills and in the field of health and safety at work; whereas the employment rate for women with dependent children is only 62,4 %, compared with 91,4 % for men; whereas women's participation in the labour market is still largely characterised by a high and increasing share of part-time work — 31,4 % for women in the EU-27 in 2007 compared to only 7,8 % for men — and 76,5 % of all part-time workers are women; whereas temporary employment contracts are also more common for women (15,1 %, one percentage point more than for men); whereas long-term unemployment is still much more common among women (4,5 %) than men (3,5 %),

R.

whereas the risk of falling into poverty is higher for women than for men, especially for the over-65s (21 %, 5 percentage points more than men),

S.

whereas reconciling professional, family and private lives remains an unresolved issue for women as well as for men,

T.

whereas the social partners play an important role in defining and effectively implementing actions for gender equality at European, national, regional, sectoral and corporate levels,

U.

whereas the sharing of family and domestic duties between men and women, not least by developing the use of parental leave and paternity leave, is a precondition for promoting and achieving gender equality; and whereas not counting periods of maternity and parental leave towards aggregate working times is discriminatory and places women in a worse situation on the labour market,

V.

whereas access to services for the care of children, the elderly and other dependants is essential for equal participation of women and men in the labour market, education and training,

W.

whereas the Structural Funds regulations state that the Member States and the Commission shall ensure that equality between women and men and the integration of the gender perspective are promoted during the various stages of implementation of the funds,

1.

Welcomes the abovementioned Commission report on equality and reiterates the two-fold nature of policy on equal opportunities for women and men at EU level: on the one hand ensuring equality between women and men in all policy areas (gender mainstreaming) and, on the other hand, targeted measures to curb discrimination against women, including awareness-raising campaigns, exchange of best practice, dialogue with citizens and public-private partnership initiatives;

2.

Stresses the importance of combating violence against women to achieving equality between women and men; calls on the Member States and the Commission, therefore, to undertake concerted action in the field; urges the Commission to consider the possibility of new measures on combating violence against women;

3.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to combine their efforts in fighting organised crime and trafficking networks, and to adopt and strengthen legislative, administrative, educational, social and cultural measures that discourage demand for prostitution;

4.

Calls on the Member States to urgently ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings;

5.

Considers overall participation of women in decision making at local, national and EU levels to be insufficient; invites the Commission, Member States and political parties, therefore, to consider action to improve the situation; notes in this regard the positive effects of the use of electoral quotas on the representation of women;

6.

Points out the correlation between participation of women in politics and decision making and their involvement in NGOs and civil society activities; urges the Commission and the Member States, therefore, to support actions promoting that involvement;

7.

Stresses the importance of women's active involvement in trade unions with tasks centred on protecting women at the workplace and granting them the rights to which they are entitled;

8.

Notes the importance to women's empowerment of their control over their sexual and reproductive rights; therefore supports measures and actions to improve women's access to sexual and reproductive health services and to raise their awareness of their rights and of available services;

9.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take the necessary measures to implement gender mainstreaming in all social, employment and social security policies, in particular in the flexicurity strategy, and to combat all forms of discrimination;

10.

Supports the measures promoted by the European Social Fund and the Progress programme for 2007-2013, which improve the situation of women in the labour market and help eliminate discrimination;

11.

Is concerned about the lack of progress as regards the gender pay gap between women and men over the last few years; urges the Commission and the Member States, therefore, to assess the strategies and actions in this area and to establish, where necessary in cooperation with the social partners, any new measures or new approaches in the implementation of existing measures, to improve the situation; supports, in this regard, the suggestion of the Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities to render existing European legislation on the subject more stringent by inserting a requirement for employers to conduct wage audits and draw up action plans in order to close the pay gap; stresses the need for concerted action, especially in the context of the new cycle of the European Strategy for Growth and Jobs, and for common principles of flexicurity;

12.

Is concerned about women being disadvantaged in the labour market, which leads to them accumulating fewer individual rights to pensions and other social welfare payments, especially in systems where entitlement is based predominantly on an individual's record of employment contributions or earnings; for this reason, calls upon the Member States to take effective action designed to enforce the rules on welfare and employment and to make jobs which respect the rights of employees available in the various activity sectors, thereby ensuring that workers (in particular women) earn decent wages and are entitled to health and safety at work, to social protection and to trade-union freedom, as a contribution to eliminating discrimination between men and women at work;

13.

Calls on the Member States to support the Commission in its monitoring of the implementation of national measures, the objective of which is to assess observance of the principle of equality, particularly as regards legal entitlements and pension and social security regimes;

14.

Calls on the Community institutions and the Member States to make 22 February ‘International Equal Pay Day’;

15.

Is concerned about the persistent discrepancy between women's and men's education level on the one hand, where women's performance is better than men's, and the situation in the labour market on the other hand, where women earn lower wages, are in less secure jobs and experience slower career progress than men; urges the Commission and Member States to explore the reasons for and find solutions to this situation;

16.

Recommends that Member States actively promote equal treatment of pupils and take steps to combat the segregation of work still existing in the education sector, in which the percentage of women teachers at the pre-school and primary levels is well above the percentage in secondary education, a more markedly male preserve with more to offer in terms of recognition, pay and social status;

17.

Proposes that the Commission consider adopting measures to encourage women and men to study scientific and technological subjects, so as to increase the supply of professionals in the corresponding sector and meet the manifest demand;

18.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take further measures to improve women's access to and participation in the labour market, especially in sectors such as high-technology, research, science and engineering, in which they are still under-represented, and to improve the quality of employment of women, in particular by means of lifelong learning and education programmes at every level; urges the Commission and Member States to make use of the European Structural Funds to achieve this;

19.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to give consideration to the situation of spouses helping in handicrafts, trade, agriculture, fisheries and small family businesses, both from the gender equality perspective and taking into account the fact that women are in a more vulnerable position than men; calls on the Commission, as a matter of urgency, to submit a proposal for revision of Directive 86/613/EEC on the application of the principle of equal treatment between men and women engaged in an activity, including agriculture, in a self-employed capacity, and on the protection of self-employed women during pregnancy and motherhood (12), with a view to eliminating indirect discrimination, introducing a positive requirement of equal treatment and improving the legal status of assisting spouses;

20.

Calls on the Member States to develop the legal construct of shared ownership, in order to ensure full recognition of women's rights in the agricultural sector, appropriate protection in the field of social security and recognition of their work;

21.

Encourages the Member States to promote female entrepreneurship in the industrial sector and to provide financial support and vocational guidance structures for women setting up companies, as well as the appropriate training;

22.

Calls on the Member States to pay particular attention to the availability of maternity facilities for self-employed women;

23.

Calls on the Commission and Member States to take particular note of the situation of the increasing numbers of workers who are formally self-employed, but can in reality be categorised as ‘economically dependent workers’;

24.

Calls on the Member States to acknowledge companies that take action to promote equality between women and men and facilitate work-life balance, in order to foster the spread of good practices in this area;

25.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to give priority to and take particular note of more vulnerable groups of women, in particular disabled women, women with dependants, elderly women, minority and immigrant women and women prisoners, and to develop targeted measures to meet their needs;

26.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to adopt and implement the necessary measures to support women with disabilities so that they may progress in those areas of social life and in the world of work, culture and politics in which they are still under-represented;

27.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote immigrant women's access to education and employment by adopting measures to combat the two-fold discrimination suffered by immigrant women in the labour market, to create favourable conditions for their access to the labour market, to balance their professional and private life, and to ensure adequate vocational training;

28.

Welcomes the consultation between the Commission and the social partners aimed at improving the legislative and non-legislative frameworks for reconciling professional, family and private lives; is looking forward to an analysis of the results of that consultation and to proposals emerging from it, in particular proposals relating to maternity leave and its inclusion in aggregate working time, parental leave, paternity leave, adoption leave and care-for-dependant leave; considers, moreover, that the Framework Agreement on Parental Leave could be improved in respect of the following points: providing incentives for fathers to take parental leave, improving the employment rights of workers who take parental leave, making the leave arrangements more flexible, increasing the duration of parental leave and pay during such leave;

29.

Points out that any policy on reconciling work and family life must be based on the principle of free personal choice and adapted to different life cycles;

30.

Calls on the Member States to put forward specific measures to combat inequalities between women and men caused by interrupted patterns of employment resulting in particular from maternity leave or leave to care for dependants, and to reduce their negative effects on careers, wages and pension entitlements;

31.

Notes that reconciling work, private and family lives is one of the keys to increasing employment and calls on the Commission to gather and disseminate best practice regarding an effective work-life balance and greater involvement of men in family life;

32.

Urges the Commission and the Member States to promote male involvement in the implementation of gender equality policies, especially in the field of reconciling work, private and family lives;

33.

Asks the Members States and regional and local authorities to improve the availability, quality and accessibility of childcare services and care services for dependent persons in line with the Barcelona objectives, and to ensure that the availability of these services is compatible with full-time working schedules of women and men with responsibility for children and dependent persons;

34.

Calls on those responsible inside firms to include flexible family policy measures in their workforce-management plan to make it easier for employees to return to work after a career break;

35.

Draws the attention of the Commission and the Member States to the feminisation of poverty, at a time when women, especially elderly women and single mothers, are at risk of exclusion and poverty, and urges them to develop measures to prevent this tendency;

36.

Asks the Commission and the Member States to develop training and implementation tools to allow all stakeholders to take on board in their respective areas of competence a perspective based on equal opportunities for women and men, including the assessment of the specific impact of policies on women and men;

37.

Urges the Member States and regional and local authorities to ensure the effective use of existing tools, such as the manuals for mainstreaming equal opportunities for women and men in employment policies produced by the Commission;

38.

Urges Member States to provide appropriate training in gender mainstreaming to officials responsible for implementing Community programmes at national, regional and local levels;

39.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to devise a number of quantity and quality indicators, as well as gender-based statistics which are reliable, comparable and available when needed, to be used during the follow-up of the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs, in order to take into account the gender dimension and to ensure the appropriate implementation and follow-up of policies;

40.

Welcomes the establishment of the European Institute for Gender Equality and the appointment of the members of the Management Board which has provided the Institute with a decision-making body; is concerned, however, at the delay in recruitment of an Institute director and urges the Commission to remedy the situation;

41.

Asks the Commission, with the help of the European Institute for Gender Equality, to include facts and statistics from candidate and potential candidate countries in future annual reports on equality between women and men;

42.

Calls on the Member States to encourage the population as a whole to play sports and lead healthy lives, bearing in mind that, where sport is concerned, women's participation rates are lower;

43.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/42

A.

whereas the Protocol on protection and welfare of animals requires the Community and Member States to pay full regard to animal welfare requirements in formulating and implementing agriculture and research policies,

B.

whereas cloning processes show low rates of survival for transferred embryos and cloned animals, with many cloned animals dying in the early stages of life from cardiovascular failure, immuno-deficiencies, liver failure, respiratory problems, and kidney and musculoskeletal abnormalities,

C.

whereas the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded in its opinion of 2008 that mortality and morbidity levels in cloned animals are higher than in sexually produced animals and late pregnancy losses and disorders are likely to affect the welfare of surrogate mothers,

D.

whereas, given current levels of suffering and health problems of surrogate dams and cloned animals, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) questions whether cloning animals for food supply is ethically justified and does not view as convincing arguments to justify food production from cloned animals and their offspring,

E.

whereas Council Directive 98/58/EC of 20 July 1998 concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes (1) provides that ‘natural or artificial breeding or breeding procedures which cause or are likely to cause suffering or injury to any of the animals concerned must not be practised’ (Annex, paragraph 20),

F.

whereas cloning would significantly reduce genetic diversity within livestock populations, increasing the possibility of whole herds being wiped out by diseases to which they are susceptible,

G.

whereas EFSA published on 24 July 2008 a scientific opinion on the implications of animal cloning for food safety, animal health and welfare and the environment, in which it concluded that the health and welfare of a significant proportion of cloned animals was adversely affected, often severely and fatally,

H.

whereas, while the principal purpose of cloning is to produce multiple copies of animals with fast growth rates or high yields, traditional selective breeding has already led to leg disorders and cardiovascular malfunction in fast-growing pigs, and lameness, mastitis and premature culling in high-yielding cattle; and whereas cloning the fastest-growing and highest-yielding animals will lead to even higher levels of health and welfare problems,

I.

whereas, in addition to the fact that the implications of the cloning of animals for food supply have not been adequately studied, it poses a serious threat to the image and substance of the European agricultural model, which is based on product quality, environment-friendly principles and respect for stringent animal welfare conditions,

1.

Calls on the Commission to submit proposals prohibiting for food supply purposes (i) the cloning of animals, (ii) the farming of cloned animals or their offspring, (iii) the placing on the market of meat or dairy products derived from cloned animals or their offspring and (iv) the importing of cloned animals, their offspring, semen and embryos from cloned animals or their offspring, and meat or dairy products derived from cloned animals or their offspring, taking into account the recommendations of EFSA and the EGE;

2.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/43

A.

whereas socialisation (through school, the family and the socio-cultural environment) is a process that forges identity, values, beliefs and attitudes that give the individual a place and role in the society in which he/she grows up; whereas the concept of identification is key to understanding how this process works,

B.

whereas more should be done to promote reasonable and responsible use of television and new technologies both at school and at home, from an early age onwards,

C.

whereas advertising which conveys discriminatory and/or degrading messages based on gender and all forms of gender stereotyping are obstacles to a modern and egalitarian society,

D.

whereas stereotypes may contribute to behaviour that is a vector for identification,

E.

whereas advertising and marketing reflect culture, and also contribute to its creation,

F.

whereas advertising is a component part of the market economy and one of the aspects of reality with which everyone is confronted in daily life,

G.

whereas advertising can sometimes present a caricatured view of women's and men's lives,

H.

whereas gender discrimination in the media is still widespread; whereas gender stereotyping in advertising and the media can be considered part of this discrimination,

I.

whereas gender stereotyping in advertising thus echoes the unequal distribution of power between the sexes,

J.

whereas gender stereotyping must be opposed at all levels of society in order to foster equality and cooperation between women and men in both the private and public domains,

K.

whereas, right from the first years of a child's socialisation, gender stereotyping may contribute to the gender discrimination which reinforces the perpetuation of lifelong inequalities between women and men and the emergence of gender-specific clichés,

L.

whereas gender stereotyping is counterproductive and in the labour market contributes to gender divisions in professions, with women generally earning less than men,

M.

whereas society as a whole has to be involved in efforts to avoid the perpetuation of gender stereotyping; whereas responsibility for so doing should be shared by all,

N.

whereas the barriers preventing positive images of men and women from being conveyed in all social situations need to be removed,

O.

whereas children are a particularly vulnerable group that places its trust not only in authority but also in characters from myths, TV programmes, picture-books, educational materials, TV games, advertisements for toys, etc.; whereas children learn by imitation and mimick what they have just experienced; whereas for that reason gender stereotyping in advertising influences individual development and accentuates the perception that a person's gender dictates what is possible and what is not,

P.

whereas advertising through different types of media is part of our daily lives, whereas it is of particular importance that advertising through media be subject to existing ethically and/or legally binding rules and/or codes of conduct to prevent adverts communicating discriminatory or degrading messages based on gender stereotypes as well as incitement to violence,

Q.

whereas responsible advertising can have a positive influence over society's perceptions of issues such as ‘body image’, ‘gender roles’ and ‘normality’; whereas advertising can be an effective tool in challenging and tackling stereotypes,

1.

Emphasises the importance of giving women and men the same opportunities to develop as individuals;

2.

Notes the continued widespread existence of male and female stereotypes despite various Community programmes to promote gender equality;

3.

Notes that further research would help to elucidate any link between gender stereotyping in advertising and gender inequality;

4.

Calls on the Council, Commission and Member States to exploit, and disseminate, the abovementioned research and its results;

5.

Emphasises the importance of Member States honouring the commitments made in the abovementioned European Pact for Gender Equality;

6.

Calls on the Council, Commission and Member States to adhere to the guidelines adopted through various Community programmes, such as EQUAL, and guidelines focusing on gender equality;

7.

Calls on the Council and Commission to monitor the implementation of existing provisions of Community law on sex discrimination and incitement to hatred on the grounds of sex;

8.

Calls on the Council, Commission and Member States to develop awareness-raising actions against sexist insults or degrading images of women and men in advertising and marketing;

9.

Calls on the Member States to study and report on the image of women and men in advertising and marketing;

10.

Stresses that stereotypes in advertising on children's television programmes are a particular problem because of their potential impact on gender socialisation and, subsequently, children's views of themselves, of their family members and of the outside world;

11.

Notes that efforts to combat gender stereotypes in the media and advertising should be accompanied by education strategies and measures to cultivate awareness from an early age and to develop critical faculties from adolescence onwards;

12.

Stresses the fundamental role which should be played by the education system in developing children's critical faculties with regard to images and the media in general, in order to prevent the unwelcome effects of the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in marketing and advertising;

13.

Notes the need to challenge traditional gender roles in order to achieve gender equality;

14.

Draws attention in particular to the need to eliminate from textbooks, toys, video and computer games, the Internet and the new information and communications technologies (ICTs), and from advertising through different types of media, messages which are contrary to human dignity and which convey gender stereotypes;

15.

Notes with extreme concern the advertising of sexual services which reinforces stereotypes of women as objects, in publications, such as local newspapers, which are readily visible and available to children;

16.

Notes the need to conduct continuous training for and in collaboration with media professionals, and awareness training for society on the negative effects of gender stereotypes;

17.

Draws attention to the fact that the use of television and new technologies is increasing among children and adolescents, that such use starts at a very early age, and that unsupervised television viewing is on the rise;

18.

Notes that marketing and advertising portrayals of the ideal body image can adversely affect the self-esteem of women and men, particularly teenagers and those susceptible to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa; calls on advertisers to consider carefully their use of extremely thin women to advertise products;

19.

Calls on the Member States to ensure by appropriate means that marketing and advertising guarantee respect for human dignity and the integrity of the person, are neither directly nor indirectly discriminatory nor contain any incitement to hatred based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, and do not contain material which, judged in its context, sanctions, promotes or glamorises violence against women;

20.

Recognises the work already done by media regulators in some Member States to explore the effects of gender stereotyping and encourages regulators in all Member States to share best practice in this area;

21.

Reminds the Commission that the abovementioned Council Directive 2004/113/EC, when first proposed by the Commission, also covered discrimination in the media; calls on the Commission to intensify its efforts against this discrimination;

22.

Emphasises the need for positive examples (from a gender perspective) in the media and advertising world to show that change is possible and desirable; considers that Member States should formally establish awards given by advertisers to their peers, and by the public for advertising which best breaks with gender stereotypes and presents a positive or affirming image of women and men and of the relations between them;

23.

Emphasises the need to disseminate the principles of gender equality through the media by means of publications and programmes, designed for different age groups, to popularise best practice and respect for gender differences;

24.

Emphasises the need for an ongoing debate on marketing and advertising and their role in creating and perpetuating gender stereotypes;

25.

Calls on the Member States to design and launch educational initiatives developed in a spirit of tolerance and eschewing all forms of stereotyping and to promote the culture of gender equality by means of appropriate educational programmes;

26.

Emphasises that gender stereotypes must be eliminated;

27.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/47

A.

whereas Israel has been facing many deadly terrorist attacks against its civilian population in recent years and whereas the Israeli authorities have taken a number of measures to prevent those terrorist actions, including arresting suspected Palestinian militants, but whereas the fight against terrorism is no justification for violating humanitarian law,

B.

whereas today more than 11 000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, are being held in Israeli prisons and detention centres and whereas most of those detainees were arrested in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,

C.

whereas, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory, a child is defined as a human being under the age of 18 years; whereas, however, Palestinian children from the age of 16 years are considered adults under Israeli military regulations governing the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and are often held in inappropriate conditions,

D.

whereas 198 Palestinians were freed by the Israeli Government on 25 August 2008 as a gesture of good will and to build mutual trust and whereas further negotiations are being conducted between the two sides with a view to reaching a more comprehensive agreement on the release of other prisoners,

E.

whereas positive steps were recently taken by the Governments of Israel and Lebanon to exchange prisoners for the remains of Israeli soldiers,

F.

whereas around 1 000 prisoners are detained in Israel on the basis of ‘administrative detention orders’, with the right of appeal but without charge, trial and rights of defence; whereas such ‘administrative detention orders’ can be, and in some cases are, prolonged for many years,

G.

whereas human rights reports state that Palestinian prisoners are subject to abuses and use of torture,

H.

whereas it is often impossible or very difficult for the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners held in prisons situated inside Israeli territory to exercise their right to visits by their families, despite calls to this effect from the International Committee of the Red Cross to Israel,

I.

whereas the issue of prisoners has important political, social and humanitarian implications, and the arrest of 48 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and other local councillors has serious consequences for political developments in the occupied Palestinian territory; whereas the ‘Prisoners' Document’, adopted in May 2006 by detained Palestinian political leaders from various factions, served as a basis for national reconciliation and paved the way for the establishment of a national unity government,

J.

whereas relations between the European Communities and Israel, under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, are based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which constitute an essential element of that agreement; whereas the EU-Israel Action Plan stresses that respect for human rights and for international humanitarian law is among the values shared by the parties,

1.

Welcomes the recent decision by the Israeli Government to free a number of Palestinian prisoners, this being a positive gesture to strengthen the authority of the Palestinian Authority and install a climate of mutual trust;

2.

Calls for steps to be taken by Hamas and Israel with a view to the immediate release of the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit;

3.

Stresses that the issue of Palestinian prisoners has a major impact on both Palestinian society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and considers that, in this context, a substantial release of Palestinian prisoners, as well as the immediate release of the imprisoned members of the Palestinian Legislative Council including Marwan Barghouti, could be a positive step towards establishing the climate of mutual trust needed to make substantial progress in the peace negotiations;

4.

Supports the legitimate security concerns of Israel; believes that the rule of law must be fully respected in the treatment of all prisoners, this being crucial for a democratic country;

5.

Calls on Israel to guarantee that minimum standards on detention be respected, to bring to trial all detainees, to put an end to the use of ‘administrative detention orders’, and to implement adequate measures for minors and prisoners' visiting rights, in full compliance with international standards including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;

6.

Expresses its concern at the situation of Palestinian women and vulnerable prisoners, who are reportedly subjected to mistreatment and a lack of access to health care;

7.

Calls on the Palestinian Authority to make every effort to prevent any violent or terrorist acts, particularly by former prisoners and, especially, by children;

8.

Expresses its belief that the upgrading of EU-Israel relations should be consistent with and linked to Israel's compliance with all obligations under international law;

9.

Welcomes the decision taken at the eighth meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council to establish a fully-fledged Subcommittee on Human Rights replacing the current Working Group on Human Rights; calls for human rights organisations and non-governmental organisations in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to be extensively consulted and fully involved in monitoring Israel's progress towards compliance with its obligations under international law;

10.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Israeli Government, the Knesset, the President of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Legislative Council, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the UN Secretary-General, the Quartet Envoy to the Middle East, the President of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/49

A.

whereas Article 11(1) of the TEU recognises respect for human rights as one of the objectives of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and whereas the new Article 21 of the TEU, as introduced by Article 1(24) of the Treaty of Lisbon, recognises that ‘the Union's action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law’,

B.

whereas sanctions are applied in pursuit of specific CFSP objectives set out in Article 11 of the TEU, which include, but are not limited to, promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy, the rule of law and good governance,

C.

whereas the abovementioned Basic Principles on the Use of Restrictive Measures (Sanctions) is the first pragmatic document defining the framework within which the EU imposes sanctions; whereas, however, the EU has in practice been doing so since the early 1980s and, in particular, following the entry into force of the TEU in 1993; whereas that document formally establishes sanctions as an instrument of the CFSP and, as a result, represents the starting point for an EU sanctions policy,

D.

whereas this sanctions policy is based principally on the following five objectives within the CFSP: to safeguard the common values, fundamental interests, independence and integrity of the Union in conformity with the principles of the UN Charter; to strengthen the security of the Union in all ways; to preserve peace and strengthen international security, in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, and the objectives of the Paris Charter, including those on external borders; to promote international cooperation; to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,

E.

whereas international consensus is growing that any serious and voluntary damage caused to the environment undermines world peace and security and constitutes a violation of human rights,

F.

whereas the EU is committed to the systematic implementation of sanctions decided on by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and at the same time imposes autonomous sanctions in the absence of a UN Security Council mandate, in cases where the UN Security Council is not empowered to take action or is prevented from doing so by a lack of agreement amongst its members; stressing in this regard the obligation incumbent on both the UN and the EU to impose sanctions in conformity with international law,

G.

whereas the EU's sanctions policy therefore incorporates UN Security Council sanctions, but its scope and objectives are broader than those of the UN Security Council policy (international peace and security),

H.

whereas sanctions are one of the instruments which the EU may use to implement its policy on human rights; recalling that the use of sanctions must be consistent with the Union's overall strategy in the area concerned and must constitute the final attempt, in the list of priorities, to pursue the specific objectives of the CFSP; whereas the effectiveness of sanctions depends on their simultaneous application by all Member States,

I.

whereas there is no authoritative definition of what a sanction is under either international law or EU/EC law; whereas, however, within the framework of the CFSP, sanctions or restrictive measures are regarded as measures interrupting or reducing, wholly or in part, diplomatic or economic relations with one or more third countries which seek to bring about a change in certain activities or policies, such as violations of international law or human rights, or policies that do not respect the rule of law or democratic principles by governments of third countries, non-state entities or natural and legal persons,

J.

whereas the types of restrictive measures include a variety of measures such as arms embargoes, trade sanctions, financial/economic sanctions, freezing of assets, flight bans, restriction on admission, diplomatic sanctions, boycotts of sports and cultural events, and suspension of cooperation with a third country,

K.

whereas, in line with general EU practice, this resolution makes no distinction between the terms ‘sanctions’ and ‘restrictive measures’; whereas this resolution takes over the definition of ‘appropriate measures’ contained in Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement (16)

L.

whereas EU sanctions themselves are founded on a variety of legal bases, depending on the exact nature of the restrictive measures and on the legal nature of the relations with the third country concerned, as well as on the sectors and objectives in question; whereas these factors determine both the procedure for adoption of the sanctions — which often, but not always, require a CFSP Common Position and therefore unanimity within the Council — and the legislative procedure to be followed in order to make the sanctions legally binding and enforceable, the common procedure being that set out in Article 301 of the TEC,

M.

whereas visa bans and arms embargoes have become the most frequently imposed CFSP sanctions and constitute one of the initial steps in the EU's sanctions sequence; whereas these two types of measures are the only ones directly implemented by the Member States due to the fact that they do not require specific sanctions legislation under the TEC; whereas, on the other hand, financial sanctions (asset freezing) and trade sanctions require the adoption of specific sanctions legislation,

N.

whereas, in accordance with the abovementioned Basic Principles on the Use of Restrictive Measures (Sanctions) and the guidelines on the subject, targeted sanctions can be more effective than more general sanctions, and are hence preferable, firstly because they avoid negative consequences for a larger proportion of the population and, secondly, because they directly affect the people responsible and are thus more likely to bring about change in the policies pursued by those people,

O.

acknowledging the existence of measures which, while they are adopted by the Council in Presidency Conclusions, are not labelled ‘sanctions’ and differ, at the same time, from the other restrictive measures listed as a CFSP tool,

P.

whereas economic relations between the EU and third states are often governed by sectoral bilateral or multilateral agreements which the EU is required to respect while applying sanctions; whereas, where necessary, the EU should therefore suspend or denounce the relevant agreement before applying economic sanctions which are not compatible with the rights granted to the third country in question by an existing agreement,

Q.

whereas relations between the EU and third states are often governed by bilateral or multilateral agreements which allow one of the parties to take appropriate measures in cases of violation by the other party of an essential element of the agreement, namely respect for human rights, international law, democratic principles and the rule of law (the human rights clause), the Cotonou Agreement being a prominent example,

R.

whereas the introduction and implementation of restrictive measures must comply with human rights and international humanitarian law, including due process and the right to an effective remedy, as well as proportionality, and must provide for appropriate exemptions to take account of basic human needs of the targeted persons, such as access to primary education, to drinkable water and to basic medical care including basic medicines; whereas a sanctions policy has to take fully into account the standards established by the Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as the UN resolutions concerning the protection of civilians and of children in armed conflict,

S.

whereas the credibility of the EU and its individual Member States is compromised when EU sanctions appear to be broken, and whereas Robert Mugabe was invited to attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon on 8-9 December 2007 despite having been formally banned from all territories of EU Member States under Council Common Position 2004/161/CFSP of 19 February 2004 renewing restrictive measures against Zimbabwe (17) as most recently extended by Council Common Position 2008/135/CFSP of 18 February 2008 (18),

1.

Deplores the fact that, to date, no evaluation or impact assessment has been carried out in respect of the EU's sanctions policy and that it is therefore extremely difficult to gauge the policy's impact and effectiveness on the ground and thus to draw the necessary conclusions; calls on the Council and the Commission to carry out this evaluation work; considers, nevertheless, that the sanctions policy used against South Africa proved effective in helping to end apartheid;

2.

Considers that disparities in the legal bases for the implementation of the EU's sanctions policy, involving different decision-making, implementation and supervision levels, are undermining the transparency and coherence of the EU's sanctions policy and, as a result, the credibility thereof;

3.

Considers that, for sanctions to be effective, their introduction must be seen as legitimate by public opinion at European and international levels and in countries in which changes are expected; stresses that consultation of Parliament in the decision-making process gives them added legitimacy;

4.

Notes also that sanctions can have symbolic value as an expression of the EU's moral condemnation, thus giving added visibility and credibility to EU foreign policy; warns, however, against placing too much emphasis on the idea of sanctions as symbolic measures, as this could result in them becoming totally devalued;

5.

Considers that recourse to sanctions should be envisaged in the case of actions by authorities or non-state entities or natural and legal persons which seriously undermine security and human rights or where all contractual and/or diplomatic options have been explored or have clearly reached stalemate, owing to the actions of the third party;

6.

Takes the view that any voluntary and irreversible degradation of the environment constitutes a threat to security and a serious violation of human rights; in this connection, calls on the Council and the Commission to include any voluntary and irreversible damage caused to the environment among the grounds which may lead to the adoption of sanctions;

7.

Acknowledges that the overall EU sanctions instruments are generally deployed flexibly in accordance with needs on a case-by-case basis; deplores, however, the fact that the EU has often applied its sanctions policy inconsistently, by treating third countries differently even though their human rights and democratic records are similar, and thus triggering criticism for applying ‘double standards’;

8.

Believes in this respect that the application and evaluation of sanctions by the European Union for infringements of human rights must in principle prevail over any harm deriving from their application to the trading interests of the European Union and its citizens;

9.

Regrets that the existence of intra-EU disagreements on policies towards a given country such as Cuba or the reluctance of Member States to antagonise major partners such as Russia have led the EU to adopt only ‘informal sanctions’ in Presidency Conclusions, reflecting an unbalanced or inconsistent application of EU sanctions; recognises, however, that measures included in the Council conclusions, such as the deferral of the signing of agreements with countries such as Serbia, could be a useful tool in order to pressurise third countries into cooperating fully with international mechanisms;

10.

Recalls that, with regard to Cuba, the abovementioned Common Position adopted in 1996 and periodically renewed reflects the roadmap for peaceful transition to democracy, remains fully in force and is not the subject of controversy in the European institutions; regrets that, to date, there has been no significant improvement as regards human rights; notes the Council's decision of 20 June 2008 to lift the informal sanctions with regard to Cuba whilst calling on that country to free all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, to facilitate access to prisons and to ratify and implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; notes that the Council will decide in a year's time whether to pursue the political dialogue with Cuba. depending on whether or not there have been significant improvements as regards human rights; recalls that the Council's position is also binding on the European Union institutions as regards dialogue both with the Cuban authorities and with the representatives of civil society; reiterates its position with regard to the Sakharov Prize winners Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and the group known as ‘Damas de Blanco’ (‘Ladies in White’);

11.

Considers that the argument of the ‘ineffectiveness’ of sanctions cannot be used in favour of lifting them and that it should be used instead to re-orientate and reassess the sanction itself; takes the view, moreover, that the continuation or not of sanctions should depend solely on whether their objectives have been achieved, and that their type may be strengthened or altered on the basis of their evaluation; considers that, to this end, sanctions should always be accompanied by clear benchmarks;

12.

Considers that the effectiveness of sanctions should be analysed at a number of levels, both in terms of the measures' intrinsic effectiveness, i.e. their ability to have an impact on the private and professional activities of the individuals targeted as members of a target regime, or on the operation thereof, and in terms of their political effectiveness, i.e. their ability to bring about a stop to, or to alter, the activities or policies which have led to their adoption;

13.

Believes that the effectiveness of a sanction depends on the European Union's capacity to maintain it for the full period and, in this connection, deplores the use of provisions such as ‘sunset clauses’ involving the automatic lifting of sanctions;

14.

Opposes the application, in all circumstances, of generalised, indiscriminate sanctions to any country, since this approach leads de facto to the total isolation of the population; considers that, unless coordinated with other political instruments, economic sanctions can succeed only with great difficulty in facilitating political reform within the regime targeted; stresses, therefore, that any sanctions taken against government authorities should systematically be coupled with support for civil society in the country concerned;

15.

Points out that most EU sanctions are being imposed on the basis of security concerns; underlines however that human rights violations should constitute a sufficient basis for the application of sanctions since they likewise represent a threat to security and stability;

16.

Points out that the main purpose of sanctions is to bring about a change of policy or activities in line with the objectives of the CFSP Common Position or conclusions adopted by the Council, or the international decision on which the sanctions are based;

17.

Insists on the fact that the Council, by adopting the abovementioned Basic Principles on the Use of Restrictive Measures (Sanctions), has committed itself to using sanctions as part of a comprehensive and integrated policy approach; stresses in this respect that this approach includes in parallel political dialogue, incentives and conditionality, and could even involve, as a last resort, the use of coercive measures, as set out in the Basic Principles; considers that human rights and democracy clauses, the system of generalised preferences and development aid should be used as tools of such a comprehensive and integrated policy approach;

18.

Stresses that the implementation of the human rights clause cannot be regarded as an entirely autonomous or unilateral EU sanction, as it stems directly from the bilateral or multilateral agreement, which establishes a reciprocal undertaking to respect human rights; considers that appropriate measures taken in accordance with this clause exclusively concern the implementation of the relevant agreement in giving either party the lawful basis for suspending or annulling the agreement; considers, therefore, that the implementation of human rights clauses and autonomous or unilateral sanctions necessarily complement each other;

19.

Welcomes, therefore, the systematic inclusion of human rights clauses and insists on the incorporation of a specific implementation mechanism in all new bilateral agreements, including sector-specific agreements, signed with third countries; recalls, in this connection, the importance of the recommendations issued with a view to more effective and systematic implementation of the clause, namely the formulation of objectives and reference criteria and regular evaluation; reiterates its call for the human rights clauses to be implemented through a more transparent procedure of consultation between the parties, including the European Parliament and civil society, detailing the political and legal mechanisms to be used in the event of a request for bilateral cooperation being suspended on the grounds of repeated and/or systematic human rights violations in breach of international law; supports the procedural model established under the Cotonou Agreement for reacting to grave violations of human rights, for democratic principles and for the rule of law; believes that the system of intensive political dialogue (Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement) and consultations (Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement), before and after the adoption of appropriate measures, has in several cases provided a successful instrument for improving the situation on the ground;

20.

Urges the Commission and the Member States not to propose free trade agreements and/or association agreements — even containing human rights clauses — to governments of countries where, according to reports by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, massive human rights violations are being perpetrated;

21.

Considers that failure to take appropriate or restrictive measures in the event of a situation marked by persistent human rights violations seriously undermines the Union's human rights strategy, sanctions policy and credibility;

22.

Considers that a sanctions policy will be much more effective when it forms part of a coherent human rights strategy; reiterates its request to the Council and the Commission to devise a specific strategy on human rights and the situation as regards democracy as part of each country strategy paper and other similar types of documents;

23.

Considers that, in the case of the imposition of sanctions, the human rights dialogues and consultations should necessarily and systematically incorporate discussions on progress made in the fulfilment of the objectives and benchmarks set out at the time of the adoption of the restrictive measures; considers, at the same time, that the objectives achieved in human rights dialogues and consultations should under no circumstances replace the achievement of the objectives underpinning sanctions;

24.

Takes the view that coordinated action by the international community has a stronger impact than disparate and uneven actions by States or regional entities; welcomes, therefore, the fact that the EU's sanctions policy should continue to be based on the notion of a preference in favour of the UN regime;

25.

Calls on the Council, in the absence of UN Security Council sanctions, to cooperate with non-EU sanctioning states, to share information, and to coordinate action at international level to prevent sanctions evasions and to maximise the effectiveness and implementation of EU sanctions and other sanctions, in conformity with international law;

26.

Considers that the EU should seek cooperation with other regional organisations, such as the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in order to promote human rights and ensure coordination of actions on sanctions;

27.

Calls on the EU to systematically develop a dialogue with non-sanctioning states with a view to reaching a common position on restrictive measures, especially at regional level; points out that, as shown in the case of Burma/Myanmar, sanctions do not often bring about the required change of policy or activities when the international community is divided and major players are not involved in their implementation;

28.

Calls on the Council and the Commission systematically to include on the agenda for political dialogues with non-sanctioning states the issue of their role and influence vis-à-vis the target regime or non-state actors, whether individuals, organisations or companies;

29.

Considers that the prospect of the signing of a free trade agreement with the regions in which a target country is situated should be used as a ‘carrot’ and means of pressure and that such an agreement should, in any case, not include the country to which sanctions are being applied;

30.

Underlines the need for an in-depth analysis of each specific situation prior to the adoption of sanctions in order to assess the potential impact of different sanctions, and to determine which are the most effective in the light of all other relevant factors and comparable experiences; considers that such prior analysis is all the more justified since it is difficult to backtrack once the sanctions process has been initiated without undermining the EU's credibility and the expression of the EU's support for the population of the target third country, given the fact that the country's authorities can instrumentalise the EU decision; takes note in this respect of the current practice whereby the appropriateness, nature and effectiveness of the proposed sanctions are discussed in the Council on the basis of assessment by the EU Heads of Mission in the country concerned, and calls for the inclusion of an independent expert's report in such assessment;

31.

Stresses, however, that such analysis should not be used to delay the adoption of sanctions; emphasises in this respect that the two-step procedure for the imposition of sanctions under the CFSP provides scope for an urgent political reaction, initially through the adoption of a common position to be set out after a more in-depth analysis of the Regulation, detailing the exact nature and scope of the sanctions;

32.

Calls for the systematic inclusion in the legal instruments of clear and specific benchmarks as conditions for the lifting of the sanctions; insists, in particular, that the reference criteria should be established on the basis of an independent evaluation and that those criteria should not be altered at a later stage, depending on political changes within the Council;

33.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to set up an exemplary sanctions review process, notably involving the systematic inclusion of a review clause which entails revisiting the sanctions regime on the basis of the established benchmarks and assessing whether the objectives have been met; insists that declarations of intent or the will to establish procedures that will produce positive results are to be welcomed, but stresses that they should under no circumstances, when sanctions are evaluated, replace the achievement of tangible and genuine progress in meeting reference criteria;

34.

Believes that the arms embargo imposed on China is an illustration of EU coherence and consistency, given that this embargo was originally established following the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the EU has not received to date any explanations about that massacre, and that there is therefore no reason to lift this embargo;

35.

Calls on the ‘Sanctions’ formation of the Foreign Relations Counsellors Working Party (RELEX/Sanctions) to fulfil their mandate to the full; insists in particular on the need to conduct research prior to the adoption of sanctions and, after their adoption, to provide on a regular basis updated information on developments and to develop best practices with regard to the implementation and enforcement of restrictive measures;

36.

Recognises that states as well as international and regional organisations should be accountable for internationally wrongful acts in the implementation of sanctions and stresses in this regard the need for a judicial mechanism with a view to guaranteeing conformity with international law and humanitarian law;

37.

Requests that Parliament be associated in all the stages of a sanctions process: the decision-making process leading to sanctions, the selection of the sanctions most appropriate to the situation, and also the definition of benchmarks and the evaluation of their implementation within the framework of the review mechanism and the lifting of the sanction;

38.

Deplores the fact that, owing to a lack of evaluation, it is impossible to assess the effectiveness of targeted measures; recognises, however, the EU's strong humanitarian concern, which has led to the abandonment of sanctions of general economic scope, as previously done in the case of Iraq, and to the imposition of more targeted, ‘smart’ sanctions, geared to achieving the maximum impact on those whose behaviour it wants to influence while minimising adverse humanitarian effects or consequences for persons not targeted or neighbouring countries;

39.

Considers that economic sanctions used in isolation from other policy instruments are extremely unlikely to force a targeted regime to make major policy changes; stresses, moreover, that far-reaching economic restrictions may entail excessively high economic and humanitarian costs, and therefore reiterates its call for more carefully designed and better targeted economic sanctions, designed to have an impact primarily on key leaders of targeted regimes and perpetrators of human rights violations;

40.

Emphasises that any economic sanctions should first and foremost target those sectors that are not employment-intensive and are of limited relevance for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are important both for economic development and for redistribution of income;

41.

Supports the use of targeted financial sanctions against key leaders of targeted regimes and their immediate family members, which act directly on the income of the sanctioned individuals; stresses the need for these sanctions to be accompanied by appropriate measures against EU economic operators cooperating with such persons; stresses that targeted commodity sanctions targeting a specific or major source of income of a regime present the risk of more wide-ranging, indiscriminate effects on the population and may favour the development of a ‘black economy’;

42.

Considers that economic and financial sanctions, even when they are targeted, must be applied by all natural and legal persons pursuing commercial activities in the EU, including citizens of third countries, and EU citizens or legal persons registered or established in accordance with the legislation of an EU Member State who pursue commercial activities outside the EU;

43.

Calls for a limited application of the ‘extraordinary exemptions’ to the freezing of assets; calls for the creation of a specific procedure for objections in the event that a Member State wishes to grant an exemption to the freezing of assets, since the efficiency of the restrictive measure is undermined by the lack of such a procedure given that the Member States are only required to inform the Commission in advance of such an exemption;

44.

Calls for action to improve the application of the EU's targeted financial sanctions, in order to ensure that, in practice, the measures comprehensively deny designated persons and entities access to all financial services within the EU's jurisdiction, including those that pass through EU clearing-house banks or otherwise make use of financial services within the EU's jurisdiction; stresses the need for greater flexibility in the distribution of sanction lists within the EU and within Member States to all persons covered by the obligations laid down in the Third Money Laundering Directive (19); proposes that each Member State designate one institution responsible for disseminating this information;

45.

Calls for enhanced cooperation by the Council and the Commission with the SWIFT management and shareholders in Europe, so as to achieve improved results in the freezing of blacklisted accounts and the elimination of money transfers from/to such accounts;

46.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to investigate the possibilities and ways to use frozen income of targeted authorities in a constructive manner, for example by allocating them to victims of human rights violations or for development purposes within the framework of Chapter VII of the UN Charter;

47.

Notes that arms embargoes are a form of sanction designed to stop the flow of arms and military equipment to conflict areas or to regimes that are likely to use them for internal repression or aggression against a foreign country as set out in the Code of Conduct on arms exports;

48.

Calls for coordinated cooperation between Member States and the Commission regarding the implementation of EU arms embargoes which are applied by each Member State;

49.

Calls on the Member States to adopt the common position on arms exports that will make the current Code of Conduct on arms exports legally binding;

50.

Urges the Council, the Commission and Member States to continue to work for improvements in UN monitoring and enforcement capabilities, and supports the view that a permanent UN team should be established to assess trade in conflict commodities and the value of sanctions in relation to them;

51.

Recalls that restrictions on admission (travel bans, visa bans) constitute one of the initial steps in the EU's sanctions sequence, entailing the prohibition of blacklisted persons or non-state entities from attending EU official meetings and also from travelling to the EU for private reasons;

52.

Notes with concern that Member States' adherence to EU visa bans has not been optimal; calls on the Member States to adopt a concerted approach in applying travel restrictions and the relevant exemption clauses;

53.

Takes account of the fact that both the autonomous EU anti-terrorist sanctions and the EU implementation of UN Security Council anti-terrorist sanctions are the subject of several cases before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance;

54.

Recalls the obligation of Member States to draft sanctions in compliance with Article 6(2) of the TEU, which requires the Union to respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States; stresses that the present blacklisting procedures at both the EU and the UN levels are deficient from the perspective of legal security and legal remedies; urges the Council to draw all the necessary conclusions and to fully apply the judgments of the Court of First Instance as regards EU autonomous sanctions;

55.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to review the existing procedure for blacklisting and delisting, in order to respect blacklisted individuals‘and entities’ procedural and substantive human rights and notably international standards as regards the obtaining of an effective remedy before an independent and impartial body and due process, including the right to be notified and adequately informed of the charges brought against the individual or entity in question and of the decisions taken and the right to compensation for any violation of human rights; calls, similarly, on the EU Member States to promote such a review within the UN mechanisms in order to ensure respect for fundamental rights when applying targeted sanctions in the fight against terrorism;

56.

Considers that Article 75 of the TFEU would be an opportunity to be seized by Parliament in order to remedy the shortcomings in current practice as regards the inclusion of names on a blacklist, and supports all the current parliamentary work aimed at being included on the agenda for the 2009 legislative programme;

57.

Regrets that none of the judicial bodies is in position to assess the appropriateness of blacklisting, given that the evidence leading to blacklisting is based primarily on information held by the secret services, which ipso facto operate in secret; considers, however, that this fundamental discretion should not be transformed into impunity in the case of breaches of international law; calls in this regard on Member States to guarantee effective parliamentary control over the work of the secret services; considers in this regard that it is necessary to associate Parliament with the work done by the Conference of Oversight Committees of the Intelligence Bodies of the Member States already in place;

58.

Reiterates, however, that the system of anti-terrorist lists, provided that it respects the most recent case-law of the Court of Justice, is an effective instrument of European Union anti-terrorist policy;

59.

Stresses that terrorism is a threat to safety and freedom, and therefore urges the Council to review and update the list of terrorist organisations, taking into account their activities on all continents;

60.

Notes that the EU has always promoted a positive approach to the use of sanctions with a view to encouraging change; stresses, to this end, that it is important to give priority to an integrated global action through a progressive strategy of pressures and incentives;

61.

Considers that a strategy of openness and a policy of sanctions are not mutually exclusive; takes the view, therefore, that the EU's sanctions policy may help to improve respect for human rights in the sanctioned country when revised for the express purpose of introducing a policy of positive measures; in this respect, notes the cycle of sanctions imposed in respect of Uzbekistan from November 2007 to April 2008: while continuing for one year the sanctions imposed for failure to satisfy initial criteria pertaining to investigations into the Andijan massacre and respect for human rights, the Council decided to suspend the implementation of the visa ban, leaving the Uzbek Government six months in which to fulfil a set of human rights criteria, and with the looming threat of the automatic re-establishment of the visa ban; notes that the mix of engagement and sanctions produced some positive developments, thanks to the possible automatic re-establishment of the sanctions and the definition of precise conditions; emphasises that these conditions must be capable of being satisfied within a limited time frame and relevant to the general sanctions regime; regrets, however, that there have not yet been any substantial positive developments and that the lack of cooperation with the Uzbek Government continues;

62.

Urges that sanctions be systematically accompanied, in the context of a multifold strategy, by enhanced positive measures to support civil society, human rights defenders and all kinds of projects promoting human rights and democracy; calls for the thematic programmes and instruments (EIDHR (20), non-state actors, investing in people) to contribute fully to achieving this objective;

63.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to seize the opportunity provided by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the subsequent creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) to guarantee optimum consistency in the EU's various external action instruments as a key element of the further efficiency of the EU's sanctions policy;

64.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to undertake a comprehensive and in-depth evaluation of the EU's sanctions policy so as to determine what influence it has and what measures should be taken to strengthen it; urges the Council and the Commission to submit a programme of such measures; calls on the Council and the Commission to assess the impact of sanctions on the development policy of the countries in question and on the EU's trade policy;

65.

Calls on the Commission to ensure that development assistance strategies under the Development Cooperation Instrument and the European Development Fund are consistent with existing sanction regimes and human rights dialogues; calls on the Commission to ensure that the conditions for general budget support, including under the so-called ‘Millennium Development Goals contracts’, are explicitly linked to human rights and democracy criteria;

66.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the appointment of a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy — who will at the same time be Vice-President of the Commission and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council — and the subsequent creation of the EEAS in order to make the EU's external action more coherent and consistent, to improve the expertise of the relevant EU services working in the field of sanctions and to enhance cooperation between the different services;

67.

Calls at the same time for enhanced cooperation between the competent authorities of the Member States and the Commission in order to ensure more coherent and effective implementation of restrictive measures;

68.

Calls also on those Member States that are members of the UN Security Council systematically to seek to internationalise sanctions issued by the European Union, pursuant to Article 19 of the TEU;

69.

Calls on the Member States, in their actions within the UN Security Council, not to infringe the human rights obligations which they have contracted, in particular under the European Convention on Human Rights;

70.

Commits its parliamentary bodies, specifically its standing and ad hoc delegations, to using their contacts with parliaments in non-sanctioning countries so as to enhance understanding of existing EU sanctions regimes relevant to the region concerned and to examine possibilities for coordinated action for the promotion of human rights;

71.

Calls on the Commission to set up a network of independent experts to put forward to the Council, as and when necessary, the most appropriate restrictive measures, to draw up regular reports on developments on the basis of the established criteria and objectives and, where necessary, to suggest ways in which implementation of sanctions might be improved; considers that the setting-up of such a network would improve transparency and discussions on sanctions in general, and would also strengthen the implementation and ongoing monitoring of sanctions in particular cases; considers at the same time that the Commission should play a more proactive role in defining a clear EU policy on sanctions;

72.

Considers that the legitimacy of the EU's sanctions policy, which constitutes a key and sensitive element of the CFSP, must be enhanced by involving Parliament at all stages of the procedure, in accordance with Article 21 of the TEU, in particular in the drafting and implementation of sanctions in the form of systematic consultation with, and reports from, the Council and the Commission; considers also that Parliament should be involved in overseeing the attainment of benchmarks by those who are subject to sanctions; instructs its Subcommittee on Human Rights to structure and supervise work in this area as regards any sanction the objectives and reference criteria of which relate to human rights;

73.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the Secretaries-General of the United Nations and of the Council of Europe.

1.

Within the meaning of this Article, the term Party refers to the Community and the Member States of the European Union, of the one part, and each ACP State, of the other part.

2.

4.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 295/62

A.

whereas maternal health (MDG 5) is the area in which the least progress among all the MDGs has been made and, therefore, it is among the goals least likely to be achieved by 2015, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,

B.

whereas over half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth every year, and 99 % of these deaths take place in developing countries; whereas in 20 years, the mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa has barely moved with only a 0,1 % annual rate of reduction in the region and women there run a lifetime risk of one in sixteen of dying in pregnancy or in childbirth; whereas maternal mortality is the most dramatic indicator of global health inequalities,

C.

Whereas, besides geographical inequality, experience and research on maternal mortality reveals significant disparities in maternal mortality rates arising from wealth, race and ethnicity, urban or rural location, literacy level, and even linguistic or religious divisions within countries, including industrialised countries, a disparity which is the largest among all public health statistics,

D.

whereas the G8 has agreed a package on health that will help the training and recruitment of 1,5 million health workers in Africa and will ensure that 80 % of mothers are accompanied in childbirth by a trained health worker; whereas this includes a commitment to upscale to 2,3 health workers per 1 000 people in 36 African countries experiencing a critical shortage; whereas, however, there is no mention of ring-fencing the USD 10 billion which civil society activists claim would be required to save the lives of six million mothers and children each year,

E.

whereas maternal mortality and morbidity constitute a global health emergency and, each year, it is estimated that approximately 536 000 women die during childbirth, while one in twenty experience serious complications, ranging from chronic infections to disabling injuries such as obstetric fistula or lifelong disabilities,

F.

whereas there is no mystery about why women die in pregnancy and childbirth, the causes of maternal mortality being clear and well-known, as are the means to avoid it,

G.

whereas the causes of maternal mortality could be prevented by the provision of safe maternal care, access to effective contraception, and legal and safe abortions,

H.

whereas maternal mortality could be prevented by increasing access to and adoption of family planning methods, by access to and the provision of safe, quality maternal care, particularly during pregnancy, at delivery, with emergency obstetric care, and in the post-natal period, and by improving women's health and nutritional status and their position in society,

I.

whereas this preventive approach includes training women and health workers to recognise complications in pregnancy and childbirth and to seek appropriate care, a network of appropriate health facilities that can be reached within a reasonable time period given available infrastructure and transport, and the provision of adequate care at these nearby health facilities, by trained staff and with effective management and available electricity, water and medical supplies, rural areas included,

J.

whereas preventable maternal deaths constitute violations of the right to life of women and adolescent girls, as laid down in numerous international human rights commitments, including the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the causes of maternal mortality and morbidity can also involve violations of other human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the right to non-discrimination in access to basic health care,

K.

whereas the right to sexual and reproductive self-determination includes the right to marry, have a family and to enter into sexual relationships voluntarily, and the right to freedom from sexual violence and coercion,

L.

whereas it is the responsibility of governments to provide, either themselves or through others, health care services as of right, and whereas even for governments with limited resources there are immediate measures that can be taken that will have an impact on maternal health,

M.

whereas, ultimately, the underlying causes of maternal mortality and birth-related injuries are less likely to be practical or structural than symptomatic of the low value and status accorded to women, who are generally disadvantaged in society, and whereas, in countries with similar levels of economic development, the higher the status of women, the lower the rate of maternal mortality,

N.

whereas women are particularly vulnerable during pregnancy or childbirth because of several forms of discrimination, including disparities between men and women in the household, traditional practices that are harmful to women, violence against women, women's lack of control over their reproductive health and rights, rejection of female babies, and stereotypes of women as primarily mothers and carers; whereas the CEDAW has been ratified by all EU Member States,

O.

whereas the UN General Assembly has included ‘universal access to reproductive health by 2015’ as one of the international community's Millennium Development targets, under MDG5 to reduce maternal mortality,

P.

whereas the international community pledged new resources at the ICPD, identifying reproductive health (including family planning and maternal health services) as a central priority for international development efforts,

Q.

whereas rather than support being increased, total donor funding for family planning is now far lower than it was in 1994, having fallen from USD 723 million in 1995 to USD 442 million in 2004 in absolute dollar terms,

R.

whereas the EU has made regular and consistent commitments to meeting the MDG 5 target, most recently in the abovementioned ‘EU Agenda for Action on MDGs’,

S.

whereas despite the gravity of this problem and the violation of human rights, maternal health services have remained low on the international agenda, overshadowed by attention to disease-specific interventions, and this has led to the marginalisation of maternal mortality, while high HIV rates have contributed to stagnating or deteriorating progress towards reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity,

1.

Expresses strong concern over the fact that maternal mortality (within MDG 5) is the only MDG on which not only has there been no progress since 2000, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, but 20 years ago the figures were the same as they are now;

2.

Notes that alongside education, the empowerment of women significantly contributes to the improvement of maternal health (MDG 5);

3.

Calls on the Council and the Commission, ahead of the UN High Level Event on the MDGs, to prioritise action to meet MDG 5 targets;

4.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to reduce the disparity between maternal mortality rates in industrialised and developing countries, through increased investment and action to improve human resources for health, and greater resources and commitment for strengthening health systems and basic health infrastructure, including allocations for monitoring, supervision, basic public health functions, community action and other necessary support functions;

5.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to intensify efforts to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and morbidity through development, implementation, and regular evaluation of ‘road maps’ and action plans for the reduction of the global burden of maternal mortality and morbidity, which adopt an equity-based, systematic and sustained human rights-centred approach, adequately supported and facilitated by strong institutional mechanisms and financing;

6.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to expand the provision of maternal health services in the context of primary health care, based on the concept of informed choice, education on safe motherhood, focused and effective prenatal care, maternal nutrition programmes, adequate delivery assistance that avoids excessive recourse to caesarean sections and provides for obstetric emergencies, referral services for pregnancy, childbirth and abortion complications, and post-natal care and family planning;

7.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to promote access for all women to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services;

8.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to adopt and develop the already well-established indicators and benchmarks for reducing maternal mortality (including Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocations) and to establish monitoring and accountability mechanisms that could lead to a constant improvement of the existing policies and programmes;

9.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to guarantee that reproductive health care services are affordable, available, accessible and of good quality, and to devote the maximum available resources to the policies and programmes on maternal mortality;

10.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure the collection of reliable and timely data to guide the implementation of measures addressing maternal mortality and morbidity;

11.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to enable training, capacity-building, and infrastructure for an adequate number of skilled birth attendants, and to ensure that all pregnant women and girls have access to such attendants and that ‘road maps’ and national action plans reflect this goal;

12.

Calls for the upscaling in national health programmes of HIV testing prior to and during pregnancy, antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive pregnant women, and HIV-preventive measures such as information campaigns and education;

13.

Urges the EU to remain in the vanguard of efforts to support sexual and reproductive health rights by maintaining levels of funding for the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, and regrets the fact that while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of maternal mortality, it also has the lowest rate of contraceptive use in the world (19 %), and 30 % of all maternal deaths in the region are caused by unsafe abortions;

14.

Believes that in order to meet the MDG targets on universal access to reproductive health by 2015, the level of funding from the EU has to be increased since, if not, women will continue to die from pregnancy and related causes;

15.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to develop programmes and policies to address the underlying health determinants that are essential to prevent maternal mortality, such as participation in health-related decision-making processes, information on sexual and reproductive health, literacy, nutrition, non-discrimination, and the social norms underlying gender equality;

16.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to follow up the advances made in the reduction of maternal mortality, to participate actively in global forums such as ‘Countdown to 2015’, to share best practices on programmes and policies in this area, and to promote a continued momentum for improvement;

17.

Urges Member States to refrain from reneging on funding commitments to meet the MDGs, including MDG 5, and calls on the Council Presidency to take the lead and set an example by ensuring that adequate and predictable funding is available and that efforts are upscaled so that lives can be saved;

18.

Recalls the commitment of Member States to achieving ODA levels of 0,7 % of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015, and calls on those Member States not currently on track to increase their efforts;