Resolution on the Convention on cluster munitions

Following the debate which took place during the sitting of 19 November 2008, the European Parliament adopted by 471 votes to 6, with 21 abstentions, a resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which will be open for signature as from 3 December 2008 in Oslo, and thereafter at the United Nations in New York, and will enter into force once 30 ratifications have been secured. The resolution had been tabled for consideration in plenary by the Greens/EFA, EPP-ED, PES, UEN, and GUE/NGL groups.

Parliament recalls that the CCM will prohibit the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions as an entire category of weapons, and will require States Parties to destroy stockpiles of such munitions. The CCM will establish a new humanitarian standard for the assistance of victims and will require States to clear unexploded cluster munition remnants that are left behind after conflicts.

Accordingly, Members welcome the work of civil society, in particular the Cluster Munitions Coalition, in seeking to bring an end to the human suffering caused by cluster munitions. They call on all States to sign, ratify and implement the CCM at the earliest opportunity, and to take steps at national level to begin implementing the CCM even before it is signed and ratified. States are urged not to use, invest in, stockpile, produce, transfer or export cluster munitions until the CCM has entered into force.

Parliament calls on all those EU Member States which have used cluster munitions to provide assistance to affected populations and on the Commission to increase financial assistance through all available instruments to communities and individuals affected by unexploded cluster munitions. Those EU Member States which have used cluster munitions must provide technical and financial assistance for the clearance and destruction of cluster munition remnants and on the Commission to increase financial assistance for the same purpose through all available instruments.

Lastly, the resolution calls on all Member States not to take any action which might circumvent or jeopardise the CCM and its provisions. Member States are asked not to adopt, endorse or subsequently ratify a possible Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) Protocol allowing for the use of cluster munitions which would not be compatible with the prohibition of such munitions pursuant to Articles 1 and 2 of the CCM.