Angelika Beer
MdEP

Nuclear Disarmament Now! - Closing Remarks by Angelika Beer

Brüssel, am 01.07.2008

Closing Remarks by MEP Angelika Beer, Speaker for Security and Defence for the Greens/EFA Group, President of the European Parliament Delegation to Iran
1st July 2008

Thank you for coming to today's conference and making it such a great success. I have collected another dozen of signatures since our press conference today, one of them being from the Co-president of the Greens/EFA, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. This makes the total number of signatures collected today from parliamentarians rise up to 80, a great start to our joint campaign.

Today nuclear disarmament is more necessary than ever. Events around the globe have lead to a perceived higher insecurity among many countries and the dangerous belief still prevails that protection can only be achieved with arms. The U.S. being a prime-example as it unilaterally spends more money on arms than anybody else. More and more states are alarmed and many follow the U.S.-example.

As long as the world system is based on two different standards - allowing nuclear weapons to some states but not others - there will be no convincing argument for others to stop proliferation. Nothing exemplifies this problem more than the seemingly intractable crisis surrounding Iran. How can we tell Iran not to have nuclear weapons if our governments refuse to do the same?

We need "counter-examples" - especially in a world such as today - of states and initiatives which take the lead to show that disarmament can be achieved, which proof that other means and policies are not only possible, but necessary and fruitful. Let us European countries take a stand and disarm unilaterally by stepping away from nuclear weapons towards a more peaceful Europe and world.

This requires the commitment of everybody. There cannot be a situation where two powers within Europe are trying to put themselves in a new strategic position. Therefore we need a coherent EU wide strategy and approach to ensure that nuclear disarmament becomes a reality now, not in another 40 years time.

Therefore we renew our demand in a written declaration for all U.S. nuclear weapons to be removed from European military bases as a concrete first step. The current situation is unacceptable. The American practise spreads nuclear weapons and the associated risks to countries which officially have no nuclear weapons, often in the nescience of their populations. We can no longer tolerate this. For that reason we call for a complete withdrawal of these weapons. We also strongly oppose the US-India-deal on nuclear material and call upon the Nuclear Suppliers Group to get in the way of this agreement.

As a concerned individual, in my role as a Member of the European Parliament, and as the Chairperson of the European Parliament Delegation to the Iran I see a Nuclear Weapons Convention as a step forward to overcome the current flawed system and the unjustifiable resulting risks. Thus I want to thank you for attending the conference today and wish us all success in our joint efforts to make the Non-Proliferation Treaty a reality, now.

 

 

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