Yemen has been ravaged by a devastating war for 10 years and the Yemeni people have been suffering from the resulting violence and a humanitarian crisis. Our European response to the recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea must therefore take into account the voices of the Yemeni people.
In addition, the European Union has to do its part to ensure safe passage for merchant vessels in order to prevent a further rise in commodity prices in the region. We must also ensure that the merchant ship “Galaxy Leader” is freed – including its crew.
In December, I was in Yemen in Yemen as Head of the Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula and saw the scale of destruction and human suffering. One thing is clear: the people of Yemen want nothing more than an end to this catastrophe.
My comments on heute journal and Deutschlandfunk
I have commented on the situation in the Red Sea on the German news broadcast “heute journal” and German public radio station “Deutschlandfunk”, among others. In heute journal (starting from min 17:58), I made it clear that I would have hoped for a quicker reaction at EU level. On Deutschlandfunk, I discussed the topic of “Houthis, Hezbollah and Iran – How dangerous is the situation?” with political scientist Ali Fathollah-Nejad and Michael Thumann from the German weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”. In this context, I also pointed out that Iran is largely responsible for arming the Houthi rebels and has been destabilising the region for a long time. We must therefore be careful not to stabilise the regime in Iran and instead support the large opposition movement in the country. After all, the Iranians themselves want change.
You can find out more in my plenary speech:
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