Pino ARLACCHI (ALDE, IT), rapporteur, presents his report on the new strategy for Afghanistan in the European Parliament, in Brussels.

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

EU - Afghanistan (T)

SWOBODA, Hannes (S&D, AT)

ARLACCHI, Pino (S&D, IT)

KASOULIDES, Ioannis (EPP, CY)

New strategy for Afghanistan: extracts from the presentation by Pino ARLACCHI (ALDE, IT), rapporteur

SOUNDBITE (English), Pino ARLACCHI (ALDE, IT), rapporteur, Afghanistan is very important because first of all of the issue of international terrorism. The fact that we went there with the armed forces to fight the presence in that country of Al Qaida people. The fact that Afghanistan is the source of the opium supply. Ninety percent of opium and heroin in Europe comes from Afghanistan.

SOUNDBITE (English), Pino ARLACCHI (ALDE, IT), Afghanistan is one of the two or three poorest countries in the world along with Sierra Leone and some other African countries. Poverty kills in Afghanistan more people than war. So it depends from the angle. Of course we are the EP and we have a big responsibility as a system, as the EU, So we must concentrate on our priorities. I try to do the best to take into account also what are the Afghan priorities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Pino ARLACCHI (ALDE, IT), The training of Afghan police. This is a key issue for establishing a moment in which our forces would withdraw from the country.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ioannis KASOULIDES (EPP, CY), The mistakes that are acknowledged by this new counter insurgency strategy, for instance, are the previous tactics of focusing only on the war on terror, finding, smoking out and eliminating terrorist and then return to the safety of the compound.

SOUNDBITE (German), Hannes SWOBODA (S&amp;D, AT), I believe we have no choice but to talk to those groups of the Talibans. Karzai is beginning to do that, if he is the right one and chooses the right ones is another question. But with those groups who are willing to, who are of course participating in power and who are willing to accept certain principles of democracy and equal rights, we have to start a dialogue.

SOUNDBITE (English), Paul TURNER, DG External Relations, There are many detailed plans already in place in different sectors. Be it the police, be it sub-national governance, be it counter narcotics where there is already a ministry in place and there is already a counter narcotics strategy. We find it difficult to see where the value added of a new EU strategy would be given that the amounts of money we are talking about compared with other countries and institutions. And also given already the huge architecture of donor plans in place agreed with the Afghans themselves. And the main ones forgetting ISAF is the Afghan national development strategy and the police training strategy, there is already a national justice strategy. These very detailed sector strategies already exist.