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Štvrtok, 15. júna 2023-Štrasburg

10. Výzva na vytvorenie európskej stratégie na boj proti rukojemníckej diplomacii (rozprava)
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Der Präsident. – Als nächster Punkt der Tagesordnung folgt die Aussprache über die Erklärung der Kommission zur Forderung nach einer europäischen Strategie gegen Geiseldiplomatie ().

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Kadri Simson, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, honourable Members of the European Ϸվ, the recent release of EU citizens, including EU-Iranian dual citizens unjustly detained in Iran, is very positive news. In the past few weeks, six European citizens unjustly detained in Iran came back to Europe and their families, two Austrian-Iranian citizens, one Belgian, one French-Irish, one French and one Danish citizen.

However, these recent releases happened in the context of a growing number of illegitimate detentions involving EU citizens in Iran. The EU continues to urge Iran to release all of EU citizens under arbitrary detention. Our thoughts are with those still in the country and their families.

The European Union made clear its united position and coordinated approach on EU citizens detained in Iran in the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council in December 2022 and in the statement of the High Representative on behalf of the EU of 20 February 2023.

In order to have consular access, be able to intervene and work for the release of all EU citizens, we must keep our critical engagement with Iran. The EU and Member States must keep diplomatic channels open. At the same time, the EU Member States are also recommending to their nationals to avoid travelling to Iran, in line with their respective national risk assessments due to the acute risks.

It is worth reminding that these consular cases are under the national competence of each Member State. This is why we have strengthened our coordination with the Member States but let me stress that the High Representative and his team are using every opportunity to express our firmest disapproval to the Iranian authorities towards this new, disturbing and unacceptable trend of detentions. It is also worth stressing that these consular cases are all quite different, often require discretion and that, unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

The EU will continue to intervene and support whenever deemed necessary by the Member States involved. For instance, we have used every official opportunity, as well as more discreet channels, to discuss the EU cases with the Iranian authorities, always in full coordination with the consular efforts by Member States who have primary consular responsibilities.

We will continue to work relentlessly for the freedom of unjustly detained EU citizens.

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Seán Kelly, on behalf of the PPE Group.A Uachtaráin, Commissioner Kadri, I welcome this debate and call on the Commission to bring forward a European strategy on hostage diplomacy. Hostage diplomacy – the calculated detention of foreign citizens by state actors in an attempt to gain leverage over another country – is worryingly becoming more and more frequent, as Commissioner Kadri Simson pointed out. Notably, hostage diplomacy appears to have become a tool of foreign policy for certain states, notably Iran.

Individual liberty and our freedom of movement are things that we take for granted until the moment they are gone from us. We can only imagine the fear and hopelessness that citizens who are detained unlawfully as hostages must feel. Hostages are often placed in prison, in poor conditions, under fabricated charges and even under the threat of execution. We think also of the pain and suffering that their loved ones would feel back home.

The use of individuals as pawns in geopolitical games is wrong. It is a violation of human rights and must be thoroughly condemned. What is more, the nations that perpetrate these heinous acts rely on the fact that Western politicians will cave in to their demands due to the pressure of family members and civil society groups calling for the hostages release. This is a cruel attempt to use our much-valued democratic freedoms against us.

In January, we call for the release of Belgian national, Olivier Vandecasteele, a humanitarian worker taken hostage by Iran. He was released in May, thankfully. The same month, Bernard Phelan, an Irishman originally from County Tipperary, was also released after six and a half months of unlawful detention in an Iranian prison.

I would like to commend the hard work of the Irish consular services and their European counterparts in securing the release of these two hostages, as well as the liberation of other victims of hostage diplomacy.

In recent years, collaboration through our diplomatic networks bilaterally and multilaterally, as well as economic and political measures, for example, on sanctions, is key towards developing a European approach to hostage diplomacy. Together we are stronger. We should use our combined diplomatic weight and knowledge to protect our citizens from harm and try and put an end to hostage diplomacy.

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Evin Incir, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, to take innocent people hostage by arbitrarily detaining them and threatening them with execution is unacceptable, a violation of all kinds of rules and bases of international law. It is evident that the EU Member States, at this moment, unfortunately, do not have enough leverage to combat this practice. We cannot let ourselves be put in a situation where we pay large sums, or release terrorists, or become silent because of a lack of a strategy on countering hostage taking and blackmailing.

We have all witnessed how the oppressive regimes, such as the one in Iran and others, use hostages as diplomatic tools. While some European citizens have been released through lengthy negotiations – which is important, of course, and which saved lives – our Member States, however, lack the leverage to effectively combat hostage diplomacy. I have myself recently met with a lot of the family members of hostages taken in Iran and learned about the unbelievable human suffering that the Iranians’ hostage diplomacy causes.

To be silent and continue with the status quo cannot and must never be an option for us in the European Union, because these horrendous regimes are bullies: when they know that one certain behaviour is successful for them, they continue to practice the same. But I also want to say that I do believe that one of the core problems is also the lack of a joint EU foreign policy in some fields. The only way the EU can really become stronger in that, against the oppressing regimes, is when the latter know that the EU is not talking with 27 different votes on foreign policies, but rather with a joint one.

Nevertheless, the EU must respond against authoritarian regimes that are using innocent human beings as a means to pressure our freedoms and human rights. I therefore think it is essential that we have a European strategy to counter hostage diplomacy and improve our cooperation to release all EU citizens and to ensure that the regimes cannot continue using this hostage diplomacy as a tool over and over again. It is only when we have a real and clear strategy jointly, and we act in cooperation with each other, that we can ensure that hostage diplomacy belongs to the past and is not used in the future.

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Samira Rafaela, on behalf of the Renew Group. – Mr President, after 456 days of illegal imprisonment, I am very happy with the news that Olivier Vandecasteele, together with two Austrians in one day and have been freed from their Iranian cells. Unfortunately, their cases are not the only ones. There are dozens of European citizens from many Member States detained by Iran and other regimes, and since 2010, over 66 people with an EU or double nationality have been detained in Iran. A prime example is the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, of which I had the pleasure to meet her husband in 2020. In the case of Vandecasteele, the Belgian Government exchanged him for a convicted Iranian terrorist and in the case of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the UK Government paid a sum worth hundreds of millions of euros to achieve her release.

This is part of a larger trend that these regimes are implementing, a trend which is called hostage diplomacy. Regimes like Iran use our European citizens as bargaining tools to get these things done. And this is completely unacceptable and unethical. So this House has strongly condemned this phenomenon and called for the immediate release of the detainees, most recently in the European Ϸվ resolution of January 2023 on the executions and protests in Iran. However, the Member States alone often do not have enough leverage to combat the horrific violations of the rights of EU citizens as they find themselves obliged to pay large sums of money or exchange convicted terrorists for their citizens.

So therefore, I call on the Commission to implement a European strategy to counter hostage diplomacy, including a specialised task force that can effectively respond and coordinate when EU citizens are being held hostage by Iran and other regimes because the consulates and the embassies cannot do it alone. The practice has shown that. So there is a special task force needed with special expertise coordinated among the 27 Member States to respond to hostage diplomacy and the blackmailing, of course, of these EU Member States. So Iran and other regimes using hostage diplomacy can only be stopped through cooperation at EU level and we can only protect our citizens if we work together. We must realise that the impact is for the whole EU and not only one single country. So let us work together and protect our citizens from hostile regimes.

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Ангел Джамбазки, от името на групата ECR. – Г-н Председател, разумно е предложението да има обща политика по отношение на дипломациите на държавите − членки на Европейския съюз, когато става дума за заложници, за такива кризи и за обща политика, която да отговаря едновременно, еднакво и координирано, и това би трябвало да бъде общата политика на Европейския съюз. Това е една от разумните области, в които може да има такава обща политика.

Но когато си говорим за такава обща политика, нещо, което е разумно, би трябвало да си отговорим имат ли обща политика Европейският съюз, Европейската комисия, Европейският парламент, когато трети държави се опитват да използват своята дипломация в ущърб на някои от държавите членки? И мога да ви разкажа един такъв пример. Примерът е с доклада, който трябва да се гласува в комисията по външни работи и се отнася до напредъка на Република Северна Македония към Европейския съюз. Там в момента буквално имате държани за заложници хората, които се самоопределят като македонски граждани или северно македонски граждани с българско национално самосъзнание, и продължава натискът върху тях, и продължава тормозът върху тях, и продължава да им бъде отказано правото да се самоопределят така, както искат. А това право, правото на самоопределение, е не само европейско, то е основно човешко право във всички харти, всички документи.

И тук въпросът ми е какво правим ние в този Европейски парламент и какво прави Комисията, какво прави върховният представител по външната политика по отношение на защитата на правата и законните интереси на тези хора, които буквално са държани като заложници от властите в една държава, която е много по-близка до Белград и до Кремъл, отколкото до каквато и да било европейска позиция, европейска ориентация. И ние сме свидетели как в тази зала има наши колеги, които сигурно също са държани като заложници от тази власт по един или друг начин, които предлагат и променят текстове в документи на Европейския парламент. Много по-скандално от „Катаргейт“, много по-скандално от всички други вмешателства във вътрешните работи на Европейския съюз, на държавите членки и на този Парламент.

Как ние като Европейски парламент да реагираме, когато наши колеги, заложници тук, по някаква причина синхронизирано предлагат текстове, които искат да изтрият защитата на човешките права, правото на самоопределение, да изтрият факти, които се случват в Република Северна Македония и в които виждаме ясно отношение към хора, които се самоопределят като българи, въпреки че имат своето гражданство на Република Северна Македония. Ето на това нещо би трябвало да бъде обърнато внимание. Кажете, г-н Председател, с какво ви разгневих? (председателят отнема думата на оратора)

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President. – Colleague, you are bright enough to know that you are far away from the issue of this discussion.

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – No, I am absolutely not. We are talking about counter hostage diplomacy and this is the very centre of ...

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President. – Yes, but we are talking about hostage in a criminal way and not disputes between states, which is your case.

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – Well, I am talking about a third state interfering in a European Union problem.

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President. – No, sorry, but we are clearly not discussing that. You heard the previous speakers. You are misusing a debate and I call you to order. So you are, anyhow, at the end of your speaking time.

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – So you are asking me not to say what I want to say?

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President. – No, no, no. We have clear Rules of Procedure. Here everybody in the House has the freedom of the world, and we have enough opportunities, particularly with the one—minute speeches, to take the floor. But you used an issue which has another title for a thing which is ...

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – Which is the same.

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President. – Which is in the interest of your Member State, which is your home affairs policy, and which concerns a dispute with another state. Therefore, I call you to order and do not intend to discuss it with you.

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – Okay, but human rights and the right of self-determination is not an issue of the Member States?

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President. – Sorry, you cannot discuss it with me. I conduct the session here and I call you to order and your speaking time is finished.

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Angel Dzhambazki (ECR). – So I will finish here, but I won’t ...

(The President cut off the speaker)

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Joachim Kuhs, im Namen der ID-Fraktion. – Herr Präsident, Frau Kommissarin, werte Kollegen! Es ist natürlich erschreckend, dass es in Ländern wie dem Iran mehrfach zu Vorfällen gekommen ist, bei denen Bürger von Mitgliedstaaten als Geiseln gehalten und inhaftiert oder sogar getötet wurden.

Ich denke, jeder hier, wie am Donnerstagnachmittag ja üblich, kann dieser Bewertung zustimmen. Allerdings bin ich nicht der Auffassung, dass es die Aufgabe der EU ist, etwas gegen diese Verbrechen zu unternehmen. Denn, werte Kollegen, wir sind doch kein Staat, und es gibt Gott sei Dank auch noch keine Vereinigten Staaten von Europa, zumal ja kein europäisches Volk existiert. Dieses heute diskutierte Problem müssen wir daher von den jeweils betroffenen Staaten lösen lassen.

Jeder Mitgliedstaat muss sich um seine Bürger kümmern. Er muss Maßnahmen gegen diese Unrechtsstaaten ergreifen, keine Frage− und im Fall des belgischen Staatsbürgers Olivier Vandecasteele also Belgien, im Fall von Cécile Kohler und Jacques Paris Frankreich usw. Deshalb fordere ich diese Länder auf, sich um ihrer Bürger zu kümmern und rasch Maßnahmen zu ergreifen.

Und sorry, liebe Kollegen, es macht leider keinen Sinn, dass wir nach Brüssel schauen und auf die Kommission schauen und Lösungen fordern für dieses Problem. Das können nur die Mitgliedstaaten lösen.

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Mick Wallace, on behalf of The Left Group. – Mr President, brutal regimes who torture, murder, execute and bomb people on a daily basis. The Israelis, the US, the Saudis, for example. They are our business partners, so we don’t care what they do. Countries that resist Western imperialism, who fight back against regime-change operations or even overthrow Western puppet regimes, countries like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Yemen, Syria, Palestine. These countries we attack.

The US, NATO and their partners when not bombing these countries are strangling them to death. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of people are dying each year from illegal Western sanctions and embargoes, from lack of access to medicine and functional infrastructure. The hostility against Iran is intense. Iranian scientists are assassinated by Israelis. The US drone bombed the revered General Soleimani, the man who did most of defeat ISIS in Iraq. Infrastructure is targeted and destroyed. The Israelis routinely blow up oil tankers destined for other sanctioned countries. The US imprisons individuals suspected of violating their illegal sanctions against Iran, taking them hostages. The US wouldn’t even relax the sanctions regime during the Covid-19 crisis. Weapons are being smuggled into Iran to arm forces hostile to the government.

You could possibly understand the Iranian Government’s paranoia about spies and infiltrators. The murder of Palestinians, the bombing and starving of Yemenis, the beheading and the brutal treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, Syrians dying from cholera. This meets silence. But for Iran, we pass countless resolutions about every human rights violation, real or imagined. We call for sanctions while engaging in unhinged, blatant racist discourse. The groups are calling for a special task force to deal with so-called hostile foreign regimes. What you need to do is stop being hostile to foreign governments. You need to stop promoting NATO lies and stop interfering in other countries, stop behaving like colonialists. Because we don’t use our platform to parrot narrow talking points, this allowed us to be instrumental in securing the release of Irishman Bernard Phelan from an Iranian prison on humanitarian grounds last month. This is what is possible if you engage with countries in a spirit of mutual respect. Iran wants normal relations with the West. That is what the entire JCPOA deal was about. It was the US who did not want normal relations with Iran. That the EU has sat by and let things deteriorate to this point is an indictment of the concept of European diplomacy, as is their failure to look for peace in the war in Ukraine because it does not suit US-NATO.

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Virginie Joron (ID). – Monsieur le Président, chers collègues, ce mandat vonderLeyen restera dans l’histoire comme un ouragan institutionnel. L’administration de Bruxelles avale tous les sujets régaliens: le nucléaire, les vaccins et notre santé mentale, la répartition des migrants pour qu’ils arrivent près de chez vous, les livraisons d’armes –avec, au passage, la création d’un «Titanic» financier de 800milliardsd’euros. Et, pour le digestif, Bruxelles s’imagine grand chambellan de la diplomatie européenne, avec la porcelaine qui va avec.

Aujourd’hui, vous venez donc nous parler d’une stratégie européenne de diplomatie des otages. Mais qui, dans le monde, peut vous faire confiance? À part les secrets de Pfizer, vous n’avez jamais rien su garder –pour ce qui concerne nos intérêts vitaux. Faillite industrielle, faillite numérique, faillite sécuritaire: vous importez l’asile au lieu de laisser les fous chez eux. L’horreur d’Annecy, la torture de Lola: quand tout cela va-t-il finir? Allez-vous demain décider que l’on peut échanger un terroriste chez nous contre un Européen chez eux?

L’histoire a démontré que ce sont les services de l’État français, la DGSE, qui sont allés sauver nos otages français par la force ou par la négociation. Qui, ici, partirait mourir dans une nuit froide pour sauver les nôtres?

Spontane Wortmeldungen

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Clare Daly (The Left). – Madam President, Bernard Phelan, an Irish citizen, was released from Iran in the last weeks, and that is very much to be welcomed. It was, of course, a product of diplomacy by Irish state services, but also by Iranian diplomats. And diplomacy by national Member States is the way in which we deal with this.

To listen to some colleagues, you would think they want to ape the American model, which is: ‘We don’t pay for hostages’. Which means that people end up getting dead, or their families go into debt secretly paying the hostages by taking out massive loans. Now, the real question here is: why does this happen? Countries that we will not allow to have normal relations with us resort to abnormal tactics in return. That does not make it right, but it does help to explain it.

We have had the exclusion of Iran from many different situations. The consequences of the sanctions, felt throughout Iranian society, are deep and painful. If we want to treat countries with respect, we have to treat them as equals, and diplomacy is the only way to resolve matters.

(Ende der spontanen Wortmeldungen)

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Kadri Simson, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, honourable Members, the debate today testifies to Ϸվ’s continued interest and solidarity with European citizens detained in Iran and I will share your input with my colleague, High Representative Joseph Borrell.

While our support and solidarity is crucial, it is also important not to disclose here more details regarding specific individual cases. We must always be aware of the risks of undermining ongoing consular efforts. Let me stress, once again, that the EU will continue to follow these cases in full coordination with the Member States involved and to use open channels to urge for the release of all detained EU nationals in Iran.

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Der Präsident. – Die Aussprache ist geschlossen.

Posledná úprava: 23. augusta 2023Právne upozornenie-Politika ochrany súkromia