12-16 May European Parliament plenary session

Date: 22/05/1997

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac fell foul of the Parliament when he was roundly criticised for blocking formal United Nations condemnation of China's human rights record. The condemnation, expressed in a statement regretting the EU's failure “to speak with one voice and present a common resolution on the human rights situation in China”, emerged as Chirac arrived in Beijing to encourage closer political ties between the two countries and business deals worth hundreds of millions of ecu.

AS THE Intergovernmental Conference approaches its climax, MEPs called on EU governments to take positive steps towards the development of a common security policy. They also called for a feasibility study on establishing a European corps of “civilian and military units responsible for keeping and restoring peace”. Under the scheme, any Union peacekeeping missions would be carried out according to a mandate from the United Nations or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Explaining his initiative, Belgian Christian Democrat MEP Leo Tindemans said: “A serious foreign policy does not have any chance of success without the back-up of military force.”

MOVES to encourage greater cooperation between European arms manufacturers won broad support as the Parliament suggested that EU rules used to protect national defence industries should eventually be revised. Arguing for greater cooperation, British Socialist MEP Gary Titley warned that Europe's defence industry faced a crisis which could only be resolved through “decisive action now, before it is too late”. Greater competition and cooperation would, he argued, produce savings for the taxpayer. He also favoured a legally-binding code of conduct for arms exports. Despite widespread backing for Titley's proposals, some members, notably German Green Wilfried Telkämper, insisted that the Union should only be involved in civilian, not military, programmes.

EXISTING Union legislation on government procurement contracts is set to be updated after the Parliament backed changes required by the latest international agreement negotiated during the Uruguay Round world trade talks. But MEPs voted to delete a European Commission proposal that there should be a ban on tenderers seeking technical advice from commercial firms when preparing complex contracts. The Commission had argued that the move was necessary to prevent the advisers from gaining a competitive advantage when bidding for a contract, but MEPs rejected this, claiming that a ban would block technical progress.

INCONSISTENT Union messages to Iran were strongly criticised by MEPs. In April, the EU withdrew its ambassadors from Tehran after a German court ruled that Iran's leaders had ordered political assassinations in Europe, but decided less than three weeks later to allow them to return. The Parliament called on governments to “establish a common and united policy” towards a country it accused of “persistent acts of state terrorism”.

ABUSE of child labour in the textile industry in Southern Asia could be curbed, MEPs agreed, if the EU adopted legislation ensuring that clothes, shoes and carpets imported from developing countries had been manufactured with full respect for workers' rights.