EU Parliament - More money and stronger action required from EU for disarmament

Out of a growing concern over the increasingly complex threat from weapons of mass destruction, the spread of small arms which kill tens of thousands of people each year, and the many victims, often children, from unexploded landmines, the Foreign Affairs Committee and its Subcommittee on Security and Defence organised a two-day Inter-Parliamentary Conference on strengthening European action in these fields.

MEPs met with members of national parliaments, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Annalisa Giannella, responsible for WMD non-proliferation in the office of High Representative Solana, Ambassador Alyson Bailes, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and Dr Patricia Lewis, director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, to discuss ways in which the EU could contribute more to stem the dangerous spread of weapons.

In general, it was felt that there were three important things to be done: the EU and its member states should devote more financial resources to non-proliferation and disarmament actions, these actions should be integrated more with development strategies and the Council and Commission should integrate their respective disarmament programs more.

Opening the conference, EP president Josep Borrell highlighted the intertwined nature of development and non-proliferation issues, and urged a frank discussion of this difficult topic, stating that "this House has the best composition for a task of this kind." Foreign Affairs Committee chair Elmar Brok pointed to the fact that all armed conflicts since Hiroshima in 1945 have been fought primarily with small and light-weight arms, adding that the world is currently faced with five "plagues: terrorism, WMD, regional conflicts, failed states and international crime", which are all interconnected. Any successful management of these issues "must have prevention at its core."

Ambassador Bailes spoke of the International Non-proliferation and Disarmament Assistance (INDA) and the continued engagement with scientists with sensitive knowledge in the former Soviet Union. She called on the EU to increase its financial and political support for such programs, and warned that effective policies will depend on avoiding duplication and confusion among different efforts. Dr Lewis also advocated more funding for programs for the eliminations of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) and called on the Commission to change its criteria for de-mining projects, as they do not include the clearing of unexploded ordnance. She also underlined the links between controlling small and light-weight weapons, human security and international development, and suggested that a SALW agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) would be a useful complement to the Union's code of conduct with regard to arms exports.

Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner stressed the importance of better enforcement of existing international agreements, as "the present climate in the international community is not conducive to negotiating new, multilateral agreements." Ģirts Kristovskis (UEN, LV), Parliament's rapporteur on the non-proliferation of WMDs, did see some reasons for hope, such as the fact that SIPRI's report will be carried out and that action is being taken on WMDs. He stressed that multilateralism is the only way to make non-proliferation effective Raúl Romeva i Rueda (Greens/EFA, ES), Parliament's rapporteur on the code of conduct on arms exports control, said that the implementation of weapons embargoes should be verified better, that the control on arms brokering - which is often clandestine - should be improved, that the available funds should be increased and that parliaments should strengthen their role as controllers of what their governments do.

Ms Giannella stressed that the lack of success at the UN Non-Proliferation Conference made stronger action from the EU more imperative. She pointed out that the present code of conduct on arms exports control already allows EU member states to refuse authorisation of arms exports to third countries which do not respect human rights and that the Council regulation on dual-use exports has proved very effective. She did say, however, that the EU's efforts to support the destruction of chemical weapons in Russia met with "a lack of facilitation" from the Russian authorities.

Concluding the conference, Karl Von Wogau (EPP-ED, DE), chairman of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, said that the world is a more dangerous place than many realise: "The four riders of the Apocalypse are there: terrorism, WMDs, international crime and failed states." Von Wogau advocated an international system for weapons control which would include arms brokering, making the code of conduct on arms exports controls legally binding and vastly increasing efforts for the clearing of mines on the Balkans.

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• European Commission adopts €17.5 million anti-landmine programme (14/3/2006)
• Speech by EU Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner - Non-proliferation and disarmament (8/12/2005)
• EU Parliament - MEPs deeply worried by WMD arms race (5/10/2005)
• EU Presidency Statement - Small Arms and Light Weapons: Weapons Collection and Stockpile Management (13/7/2005)
• EU Presidency Statement - UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (11/7/2005)
• Déclaration de la Présidence de l'Union européenne - Armes légères (17/2/2005)