Proposition 54K2672

Proposition de résolution relative à l'adhésion de la Belgique au traité international d'interdiction des armes nucléaires.

General information ¶

Authors

Ecolo Benoît Hellings
Groen Wouter De Vriendt
Vooruit Alain Top, Dirk Van der Maelen

Submission date

Sept. 20, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Rejected

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

nuclear weapon resolution of parliament nuclear non-proliferation arms limitation

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Open Vld N-VA MR PP VB

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ PVDA | PTB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 31, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Unfortunately, at the beginning of November last year, the Committee on Foreign Relations rejected the draft resolution presented today in the plenary session. I will not repeat the arguments I have raised in the committee. I have been waiting for today because I knew that by the end of January, the highly respected association of atomic scientists in the United States will evaluate the threat of nuclear weapons in the world with the so-called Doomsday Clock. Well, last week, that association of atomic scientists set the clock at two for twelve. Never before has the great wiser been closer to the twelve than this year. I will not cite all the arguments the association has used for this; I will limit myself to three of them.

The Association of Atomic Scientists has had to conclude that in 2018, unfortunately, once again, all nuclear weapons states jointly spent $100 billion on the maintenance of the nuclear weapons arsenal. That’s two-thirds of all expenditure on development cooperation; another $100 billion every year for the preservation of nuclear weapons!

The second argument that the scientists argue is that the various nuclear-weapon states are engaged in very profound modernization programs for their nuclear weapons. I will not summarize them all, but one, what our country must do, namely the modernization of the tactical nuclear weapons located in Kleine Brogel and Florennes.

Third, the Association of Nuclear Scientists refers to the announcement by President Trump on February 2 to withdraw from the medium-range missile treaty, with which the six-month notice period begins. Colleagues, medium-range missiles are cruise missiles and against them was organized in the 1980s the largest demonstration ever in Belgium.

Those three reasons, the immensely high sums spent on it, the heavy modernization programs and the termination of the medium-range missile agreement, make the association of atomic scientists in the United States decide to put the clock at two for twelve.

Many countries have understood this. The committee shared the number of countries that signed the agreement on the prohibition of nuclear weapons negotiated on 7 July 2017. Well, more than a year after the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons could be ratified, the state of affairs is that twenty countries have done so, while seventy countries have signed it in the meantime. Never before could a nuclear deal count on an increasing number of joining states so quickly. The Swiss parliament decided in early January to call on its government to allow Switzerland to also join the ban on nuclear weapons.

The resolution presented today, which I hope you will vote against the rejection, provides for the same call. In our resolution, we ask the government to sign that treaty, in consultation and cooperation with other European Member States. We do not have to do this alone, but it does not have to do so with all NATO countries or with all EU member states. The call is there.

Let me use the words of the Prime Minister. You have the option of choosing which side of history you will be on. Will you stand on the side of the nuclear arms race that has begun and continues, or will you choose the side of the seventy countries that have decided that it must be done with that nuclear madness? Are we joining the countries that are eager to ban nuclear weapons? That choice is immediately up to you.