Speech at the plenary session of the European Parliament, February 16, 2006 - Strasbourg

Tobias Pflüger, in the name of the GUE/NGL fraction - Mr. President! After years of civil war and tens of thousands of casualties, there finally are negotiations again, and we must assert very clearly: There cannot be a military solution to this conflict in Sri Lanka, but only a political one. I am very happy that the Norwegian government has seized the initiative for these negotiations. It is quite interesting though that it should be Norway and not the European Union. There poses itself a quite essential problem in fact: The conversations cannot take place in the European Union, because there is the so-called terror list. On this terror list, there figures the LTTE, and therefore, the negotiators cannot even enter into the EU. That shows the absurdity of this EU terror list, and I think that it is very often used as a tool to be able to proceed against those whom one does not like politically.

I want to say very clearly that I am not very happy with the procedure of voting today, because I think that there has been political pressure on us not to vote today. I would be in favour rather of us saying very clearly: We welcome these negotiations, and we wish for the success of a peace process in Sri Lanka.

Translated by Carla Krüger, February 21, 2006