Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-16-Speech-4-143"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020516.5.4-143"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – Mr President, I shall begin by addressing some of the points raised this afternoon. Firstly, Mr Miranda's wish that Parliament be kept well informed about progress in our relationship with the United Nations family and that this be included in our annual report. I agree completely. I am grateful to Mr Miranda for referring to the annual report, because it requires something of an effort to produce it, and so I am very touched to hear it mentioned. It may also be useful from time to time in direct discussion in Parliament's committees.
The follow-up to the Communication we are discussing is already well advanced. Bilateral meetings have been conducted with a number of UN agencies: funds and programmes and the strategic programming dialogues established by ECHO are examples.
For the country strategy papers, consultation with UN bodies present in the country is now obligatory. This is where the type of cooperation I mentioned in my response to Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo applies. We are discussing further steps with the UN Secretariat.
A broad fact-finding exercise on mandates and capacities of potential UN partners was launched in November 2001 to determine how their key capacities match with our priorities. The first results of this will be available by June.
A more effective partnership with the UN requires an adequate enabling legal and financial environment:
We are negotiating the revision of the 1999 EC-UN Framework Agreement, with a view to concluding all this by the end of the year. However, recasting the changes in the Community’s Financial Regulation is still, as I said before, under discussion in the Council. This work will have to be completed fully to realise the intentions of the Communication. This is the real bottleneck.
The United Nation’s response, called "A Vision of Partnership", supports much of the Communication and proposes to go even further. The Commission is drafting another communication that will address the EU-UN relationship at a broader level, as your resolution also suggests. In preparing this communication we will take account of the points made by Parliament in this debate. We look forward to working hand in hand with Parliament in strengthening our influence in the world through this process.
Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo wanted more emphasis on the operational side, even at the level of project selection with UN organisations. Basically, the way in which we prefer to work with others is project selection or the formulation of sector programmes, something rooted in the policy of the host government. The consequence will be that we and other donors provide some sort of basket funding enabling a government to carry out its education policy, its health sector policy, or whatever, rather than donors together deciding on a project. It has to be flexible to meet all kinds of circumstances, but basically this more problematic way of planning things is also what we are discussing with the UN family.
A big problem today is that the restrictions on how we can spend money in the existing Financial Regulation force the Commission to fund specific projects only one by one, through UN organisations. This makes us an inadequate and even sometimes unwelcome partner because we lack predictability and a more long-term perspective. On top of this, we are obliged, on the basis of existing rules and regulations, to insist on having reporting, accounting and auditing on funding through a UN entity carried out under our rules. We are not allowed to accept their way of reporting, unlike our Member States. This is the core of the changes that we presented nearly two years ago to Member States. I will come back to this.
Mr McCartin, it is absolutely true that we still have a problem about the rate of implementation. However, at the end of 1999, when this Commission took over, it took 4.6 years to spend what was committed at the then rate of spending. The following year this was down to 4.1 years and, at the end of 2001, the figure was 3.6 years. So we are eating into the mountain of unspent commitments. We have not finished yet, but things are moving.
On the question of the development of a single policy, we have an overall development cooperation policy statement. It was adopted unanimously by Member States in November 2000 and Parliament has also endorsed this policy unanimously. We are very pleased with that. The main effect of this policy is to focus more clearly on poverty reduction or eradication as the guiding principle for whatever we do. We have never had anything like this before. It covers our global activities, so we have a guide as to what Member States should do. However, reality can be different.
Let me applaud the positive and constructive report of Mr Miranda. We welcome the support given by that Parliament to the Commission’s approach to building a more effective partnership with the United Nations. I liked the positive tone this afternoon in all the speeches. This has not always been the case. It is a sign of maturity and of healthy self-confidence on our part in Europe that we now approach this in a more active manner.
The United Nations, due to its global mandate, its unique legitimacy and, in a number of areas, its operational strengths, provides an irreplaceable framework to address global challenges confronting the international community. Enhancing dialogue and cooperation to build a strategic partnership between the Community and the United Nations will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, thereby strengthening the Community’s contribution to poverty reduction and human security.
There is, however, a limit to how far we can go. It is, after all, called the United Nations – it is not called the "United Commissions". Our Member States are the real owners of the United Nations as an organisation. But there is large scope for improvement and a very strong interest on both sides to move in that direction. A more active and visible presence of the Commission in the UN also has a positive effect in enhancing the ability of the European Union as such to act and speak with one voice on global matters. This is a very important, and also a very real, aspect. We saw this demonstrated in Monterrey, and it is the intention of the Commission to continue along the same lines.
We aim at concrete outcomes at policy and operational levels. At policy level we will strengthen the involvement of the Community in the upstream policy dialogue with the different members of the United Nations system. At the operational level we will work towards a transparent, financially credible, predictable and easier to monitor strategic partnership with selected UN agencies, funds and programmes."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples