Debates - Thursday 10 March 2005

Pflüger (GUE/NGL). –(DE) Mr President, it is good that we should have today a joint resolution focussing attention on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. On the Arabian peninsula, just as in certain Swiss cantons, it is women who have fundamental rights denied them. It was as recently as the 1970s that Saudi Arabia held its first local elections, in which women were denied the vote – and, as I was able to see for myself when our Gulf States delegation went to the local elections in Riyadh at the beginning of February, they still are.

What double standards, though, do we find among the Member States’ Heads of State or Government? On the one hand, they do – occasionally and quietly – make critical comments about the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. On the other, business is booming, particularly in armaments. Yet again, alas, Germany leads the field in this respect. The statements made by the German Federal Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, on his visit to Saudi Arabia, speak volumes. He described Saudi Arabia as a country with enormous potential and vast financial resources. It is therefore hardly surprising that his visit saw every kind of arms deal being done – deals that certainly do nothing to make the region more peaceful and will do nothing to improve the human rights situation there. I favour a general ban on Member States of the European Union exporting weaponry, not only to China, but also to Saudi Arabia. Let us do away with double standards and stop exporting armaments.

Something else I want to address is the position of workers who are not Saudi nationals. People in EU diplomatic circles said that the term ‘slavery’ struck them as a description of the situation of such workers in Saudi Arabia. The situation of non-Saudi workers in Saudi Arabia is a fundamental issue, and one that this House really will have to debate.