mr president let me say how delighted i am that we are finally discussing the goldstone report in plenary because it is a vitally important issue and to date the eu has been shamefully absent in these issues
it is quite unacceptable that the council still has not endorsed the recommendations of the goldstone report
the commission says it is taking it very seriously but that is not good enough we want an explicit endorsement
the presidency says that it backs it well it should back it publicly and explicitly and make sure that the rest of the council does as well
against that backdrop i have to say i am pleased that in parliament's motion for a resolution on the human rights council which we will vote on tomorrow we have two very strong paragraphs calling on the high representative and on member states to publicly demand the implementation of the report's recommendations
the resolution further calls on them to actively monitor the implementation of the recommendations for consultation of eu external missions and with ngos in the field because the evidence we have so far is that neither the israeli authorities nor hamas are taking their responsibilities sufficiently seriously
in israel the investigations into targets and tactics used during operation cast lead have been carried out by army commanders or military police severely compromising the independence of the findings and from the hamas side there is still a failure to address adequately the firing of rockets into southern israel
in the light of these failures it is clear that the eu should put pressure on the un secretary-general to prepare a genuinely independent assessment
finally given the ongoing humanitarian crisis in gaza i call again on the council and the high representative to put far more pressure on israel to lift the siege which is preventing reconstruction and exacerbating the suffering
