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EU resolution

29 May 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Chowdhoury Mohibul Hassan London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK
29 May 2005, 18:00 PM
I would like to express my views on the European Union Parliament's recent resolution on the situation in Bangladesh as to why should it matter to us. European Union is one of the most influential international organisations in the present world politics. No other regional body has such an extensive co-operation as well as almost state like institutions like the EU. It has its own currency as well as its Central Bank.

It has a common single market with an overall market output that is 20-times more than the US, Canada an Mexico (NAFTA) combined. It has its own policy initiation body and a legislature, and it has the European Court of Justice, which is the ultimate appeal court of all the EU member states. It provides for a common platform of European nations.

The tie those member states have between them and the organisational obligations member states take upon entry are tantamount to compromising certain economic and political sovereignty of the states. For example in the UK where the common law had been holding parliament as the only sovereign body for centuries, now it is understood that laws passed in the parliament cannot ever be in conflict with the EU treaty obligations, and if it does than those laws would be null and void. If the EU is not a state as a single body, it is a ''super-state'' much like a large federation. So when one talks about the EU, one has to take these very subtle and significant issues into consideration.

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And for developing countries such as ours, it is a rather big potential in economic terms. The resolutions, which the EU parliament passes, are of enormous persuasive value for the 25 member states' policy makers. Considering all these, one cannot simply state that the recent resolution passed in the EU parliament on 'the situation in Bangladesh' can be side-stepped and ignored.

It is certainly true that the resolutions, which the EU parliament passes, cannot be enforced anywhere outside Europe, and has almost no direct legal implication under International Law. However, it is also true that even UN General Assembly's resolutions are analogous to the EU resolutions; they are not binding on any country.

The EU resolution in this case simply suggests that they are only anxious as to the situation in Bangladesh. But does it then mean that, we, only for arrogance's sake, ought to turn a blind eye on it? I doubt we can afford to.

International politics requires us to make friends, and not disown them.