Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-316"
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"en.20010116.13.2-316"2
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". – Mr President, let me first of all say that I feel it is a privilege to discuss these matters, as we are doing here on the basis of your report. For me it represents a sort of idyllic political consensus. We agree on your report and we welcome it very much and this is not just nice, it is also really valuable for Bangladesh and other partners. It is very useful that we in Europe should profoundly agree on how to work with our partners. If we were discussing aimlessly without any sort of direction, they would not have a good partner, so it is really important that we agree.
A year ago I deliberately chose Bangladesh as my first destination on a normal bilateral field trip. We went there after the UNCTAD conference in Bangkok. I wanted to go to a non-ACP LDC country to start in the right place. I also wanted to start in a country as Commissioner doing field trips, a country that I knew well already in order to better be able to assess how the Commission works. If I went to a country I did not know, there would be too many disturbing impressions, but this one I knew quite well and I am happy to say that I was positively surprised by what I saw in the field. We were closer to the poor women, we were further out in the villages than I had expected and we worked more through Bangladeshi NGOs than I had expected. This is a good basis and also one of the reasons why Parliament and Commission are in harmony about where we go now.
There are big problems to discuss with the Government of Bangladesh, notably its inefficiency: it performs as badly as the Commission, so the two of them have a lot to talk about, but we know that and we are clear about it saying "our delivery problems are clear and well-known, but please do not add to them by also being slow and unclear in your decision-taking process".
This is why the new agreement that we are now deciding on is so important, because it, in fact, brings cooperation one step further forward and clarifies priorities. We will go from one country to another across the world and bring what we are doing up to normal standards concerning the basis of cooperation and priorities. So this is all very good
As to the questions that have been put concerning the elections, on 27 January we are sending the assessment team from the Commission over there and we will be ready, willing and eager to include representatives of Parliament in an observation capacity. If this is what we finally decide to do, we think it may be very useful. Bangladesh has done quite a number of valuable things in recent years: regionally, agreeing more with her neighbours and approaching solutions to very old problems. As to the Chittagong Hill tribes, we take the view that the issue there is moving too slowly. I clarified this when I was there in February last year. On the other hand, problems relating to land-ownership and other things are very difficult to solve in any country. The attitude is important and I believe they are trying to do something meaningful.
What Mr van den Bos has mentioned concerning donor coordination and the many NGOs in Bangladesh is interesting and important. Many innovations have taken place there. Microcredit is a great achievement and it is not only one very famous organisation that has been successful. But I would come back, when we talk about development in Bangladesh, to the role of women. This is quite remarkable. Their ability to change the life and the situation of families is extraordinary, but I would, in fact, point to the many young women and girls in the textile factories who in a strange way represent the chaotic way of modernisation. The alternative – not having jobs – is quite problematical, but the kinds of jobs they have are also very problematical. At the end of the day our liberalisation, the access for them to our market, is part of the hope of these women and of Bangladesh, so I think we are on the right track and I very much appreciate the support and the agreement that we have on what to do in Bangladesh."@en1
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