Karamanou (PSE).
– (EL) Mr President, the nineteenth Winter Olympics start in Salt Lake
City in the USA on Friday 8 February. As you know, the aim of the Olympic Games
is to promote world peace, friendship, understanding, solidarity, dialogue and
the peaceful coexistence of nations and cultures through the common endeavour
of athletes from all over the world. This is the spirit in which the Olympic
truce, the fundamental principle behind the Olympic Games, was born in the
eighth century. Weapons were laid down and all hostilities ceased while the
Games were on.
As the idea of this truce, of global
conciliation, echoes ideas and values repeatedly proclaimed in this Chamber, I should
like to ask you to write to the President of the Olympic Committee, Mr Rogge,
and to the Secretary-General of the UN, Mr Kofi Annan, confirming that the
European Parliament supports the idea of a truce and calling on everyone
involved in armed conflict to lay down their weapons and use the coming weeks,
while the Olympic Games are under way, to resolve their differences peaceably.