Newham Borough Liberal Democrats

Sarah's bulletin: 27 November 2009

Dear Friends,

Most widespread human rights abuse in the world: rape and abuse of women

Last Wednesday was the International day for the elimination of violence against women and to mark the occasion, I and a few of my MEP colleagues met with 'Vagina Monologues' author Eve Ensler to talk about strategies for eliminating what is the single most frequent human rights breach in the world.

As well as being a playwright, Eve Ensler has long supported women in the Democratic Republic of Congo through her global campaigning organisation, V-day. It is estimated that over the last 10 years of conflict, half a million women, girls and even babies have been raped and often horribly mutilated.

Despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council last year unanimously adopted a resolution condemning rape as a weapon of war, the international community has never considered the mass rape occurring in Congo an emergency. This has to change.

We cannot believe Western governments when they say they are doing all they can to put an end to the endemic violence and rape there. A recent United Nations report has uncovered new evidence of how Congolese and Rwandan networks, including within EU member states, are operating to raise money to supply arms to Hutu militias which engage in the mass killings and atrocities that are taking place in that vast and lawless country. When you and I have to supply myriad forms and identification to open a new bank account, it amazes me that the major bad boy money-launderers just get round the controls.

Hillary Clinton has already made women's issues a core part of her national security strategy; in August she visited a shelter for rape victims in the eastern Congo. Using my position as vice chair of the European Parliament's US delegation, I will lobby Clinton and her new EU counterpart Catherine Ashton to take this issue up seriously, both in terms of foreign policy, but also as an internal security priority. Now that woman are set to comprise 9 out of 27 commissioners, we may be able to gain more traction on this issue.

New European Commission

I am proud to say that not only are there 8 Liberal nominees for Commissioners, more that the Socialists' 6, but half of ours are women compared to a third of theirs, and only 3 out of 13 for the EPP. Barosso has named the portfolios for our team as:

de Gucht - Trade

Geoghegan-Quinn - Research and Innovation

Kallas - Transport and VP

Kroes - Digital Agenda, VP

Malmstrom - Home Affairs

Potocnik - Environment

Rehn - Economic and Monetary Affairs

Vassiliou - Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth

so we have a heavyweight collection of responsibilities, which is excellent, reflecting economic and social liberal concerns as well as our justice preoccupation, and Liberals will be 3 of the seven Commission vice-presidents. Unfortunately the Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship portfolio is in the hands of a conservative, Viviane Reding from Luxembourg, who was weak recently on restrictions on media freedom in Italy, but we will press her in the hearings… To read about all the appointments, see here.

The build-up to Copenhagen and a European renewable energy 'supergrid'

We are now just 10 days away from the start of the Copenhagen climate talks. Almost every day it seems the media come out with another story about how doomed the talks are, so it is more important than ever that we keep up the pressure on our governments' representatives to push for a binding agreement - a task which my Lib Dem MEP colleagues Fiona Hall and Chris Davies are more than qualified to do! LibDems believe the EU must commit to a unilateral reduction in carbon emissions of 30% by 2020, and 40% if there is an international agreement (the current EU commitments are 20% and 30%). The European Parliament this week set out that at the very minimum the Copenhagen summit should result in a binding agreement on climate change mitigation targets for industrialised countries and on financing.

Liberal Democrats in the UK have pledged to reduce emissions faster and more effectively than any other party - more Liberal Democrat councils have signed up the 10:10 pledge than any other party, and Lib Dem run Newcastle was recently named the country's greenest city.

I also this week met the organisers of a new initiative called the 'Climate Parliament' (a subsidiary to the 'e-Parliament'). They are building a network of European and national legislators to promote a regional Europe-North Africa renewable energy supergrid and other essential measures to prevent dangerous global warming. The idea is that by using efficient transmission lines, you can connect wind power from Scotland and Portugal, with solar power from Spain and the Sahara, with hydro-electric power from Norway and the Alps and together provide a stable supply of clean, green power. This is the kind of innovative idea that we need more of in order to have a real stab at combating climate change, and is another example of how by pooling our (in this case energy) resources the EU is stronger together.

The Tories show their nasty side

Staying on the topic of Copenhagen, David Cameron's Tory MEPs have launched a last minute attempt to scupper the EU's Copenhagen position of arguing for climate change aid for developing countries. In last Wednesday's debate on the EU Copenhagen strategy, Conservative MEP Martin Callanan tabled an amendment that would have removed the EU-wide commitment to provide "new and additional" money for funding mitigation and adaptation measures for developing countries. The Conservatives also opposed the Parliament's long-standing position that part of the money raised by the European Emissions Trading Scheme should be earmarked for developing countries' climate change needs.

This is truly shameful: developing countries produce a fraction of the world's carbon emissions and yet are the most vulnerable to its impacts, with the least ability to adapt. Contributing to their mitigation and adaptation efforts is the very least the global North can do... It is a question of morality, not charity. And yet the Tories would evade even that basic moral responsibility. Cameron is attempting to create a green, eco-friendly Conservative image in Britain to try and capture the middle ground, but we must hold him to account for what his MEPs are doing in the European Parliament.

Human rights: putting pressure on France, Britain - and Dmitry Medvedev!

This week the European Parliament discussed the forced return of 27 Afghans from France and Britain to Kabul. The return of asylum-seekers to a place of danger is a violation of human rights and the onus is on those countries to show there is not a risk, which might be difficult as we are fighting a war there. Asylum-seekers cannot just be bundled together for rejection - each case must be considered individually. You can read more about this in my press release here.

Last week I joined with a number of MEP colleagues to send the president of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev a strongly worded letter affirming that we are all for developing the EU-Russia relationship but that has to be accompanied by real progress on the rule of law, human rights and property rights and independence of the judiciary in Russia. It emphasised how the rule of law - the foundation of vibrant democracies - must also be a foundation of EU and Russia's partnership. This was particularly in response to the murders of Natalia Estemirova, Andrei Kulagin, Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Djabrailov, four brave human rights workers who dared to criticise the regime. Human rights and the rule of law should be made a fundamental part of all our foreign policy.

Internet users' rights

The European Parliament this week secured a "prior, fair and impartial" procedure for internet users' before they are cut off for illegal file-sharing and downloading, and Liberals had a big input into that result. Unfortunately we did not manage to ensure that this was the full court ruling we wanted, but it is a huge improvement on Peter Mandelson's proposed "3 strikes and you're out approach" which is copying France. and contravenes the presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

Smoking Ban

I abstained on a call for a push for a smoking ban in all workplaces across the EU. It is not that I oppose this aim, far from it (it is 20 years ago this month that I gave up smoking…) I welcomed that fact that the final wording left it to national legislation, which I think is right, but the bit of the text calling for an end to EU subsidies for tobacco-growing got voted out by the forces of conservatism on left and right, so I could not fully endorse the final text.

Stockholm programme for justice and home affairs

Last week the Parliament voted to set out the EU's priorities in freedom, security and justice for the next five years. We welcomed the inclusion of data protection safeguards and respect for fundamental rights. Other groups did manage to water down the principle of equal treatment for same-sex couples across the EU, which is unfortunate. In my own speech I welcomed the renewed push from the Swedish presidency on defendants' rights across the EU, since as the Andrew Symeou case highlights, 'mutual recognition' in the judicial sphere such as the semi-automatic extradition with the European Arrest Warrant, can only work if there is a real basis for mutual confidence in each other's legal systems. If our citizens are going to be locked away while they await trial simply because they are 'foreign', we cannot have such confidence. I hope that between now and 2014 this will change and I am working on one aspect of this file, which is the right to translation and interpretation for those tried abroad.

Read my comments and speech on the Stockholm 2009-2014 programme and Andrew Symeou case.

Best regards,

Sarah Ludford