whereas the European countries and the EU itself are major contributors to the UN system, notably in providing financial support for UN programmes and projects; whereas France, Germany and the UK are the largest European contributors to the budget for UN PKOs; whereas the EU Member States are collectively the largest contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping budget, with about 37 %, and are currently contributing troops to nine peacekeeping missions; whereas, in addition, in 2014 and 2015 EU financial commitments to the AU totalled EUR 717,9 million and AU contributions amounted to just EUR 25 million; whereas European countries contribut ...[+++]e only about 5 % of UN Peacekeeping personnel, with 5 000 troops out of a total of some 92 000; whereas, however, France, for example, trains 25 000 African soldiers each year and separately deploys over 4 000 personnel in African PKOs.

16. Stresses the need for all parties to respect the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence in order to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance, the safety of civilians receiving assistance and the security of humanitarian personnel; recalls that attacks intentionally directed against personnel involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter, insofar as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the inter ...[+++]national law of armed conflict, constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;

The mutual assistance clause specifically states that it will not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States, which guarantees that neutrality will be maintained.

R. whereas some emerging and developing countries have put forward ambitious targets since the EU targets were set in 2007 and 2008, e.g. Brazil’s emission’s reduction target of 36%-39% compared to business as usual, Mexico’s target of a 30% drop compared to business as usual, the Maldives’ objective to be carbon neutral by 2020, or Costa Rica’s to be carbon neutral by 2021,

The Commission attaches high importance to preserving the open and neutral character of the Internet, taking full account of the will of the co-legislators now to enshrine net neutrality as a policy objective and regulatory principle to be promoted by national regulatory authorities , alongside the strengthening of related transparency requirements and the creation of safeguard powers for national regulatory authorities to prevent the degradation of services and the hindering or slowing down of traffic over public networks .

The Finnish Presidency has ended wretchedly from the point of view of preserving the non-alignment of a non-aligned State.