Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

Vice President Garzón is a former trade union leader and in our meetings with him a few weeks ago he stressed labour rights as well as human and other rights. While people have disappeared and children have been inducted into narco-terrorist gangs and so forth, of the 70,000 people who have been killed in the past two decades the largest proportion is of trade unionists and trade union membership is now 50% of what it was 20 years ago because of the attempted terror directed at the right to organise. I understand a group from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will visit Colombia on 9 December and will no doubt stress this point. On the relationship of the European Union with Colombia, will the European Union seek to require of multinationals with head offices in European countries that they comply with ILO regulations in terms of the environment, consultation, work practices and rights? I am referring to European Union companies involved in the natural resources area, in particular in the extractive industries.

See this speech in context