Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-296"
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"en.20030903.13.3-296"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a report which should have been dealt with during the last part-session of Parliament – before the summer – since it was ready to be debated, and which had been produced principally by our Committee on Development and Cooperation, with opinions being produced by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities. In fact, our initial proposals were considerably improved by means of the proposals made by the rapporteurs Mrs Ursula Stenzel and Mrs Regina Bastos, respectively, and the text of the final resolution was approved unanimously, as I hope will be the case in tomorrow’s vote.
Thank you, Mr President, and thank you also to the Members who helped me in the production of this report. Thank you also to the people responsible within the Commission, who showed great willingness to help us, clarifying issues and replying to our questions. Thank you, finally, to the officials of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and those of my group, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, who cooperated with me generously and very effectively throughout the production of our report.
Our report is an assessment of a document produced by the Commission which analyses the European Union’s development policy and the execution of foreign aid during 2001. It should be pointed out at the outset that this is a very useful compendium of data and comments which are not available in any other form for easy consultation. The document describes in a reasonably clear way how the Commission spent the funds available to it during 2001, both in the field of development cooperation and with regard to humanitarian aid. This assessment is particularly important, above all, if we bear in mind that the European Union is the main donor in certain areas.
Our report, however, makes many critical observations, all in the best spirit and in the hope that in subsequent years the shortcomings and insufficiencies will be overcome. Furthermore, we take account of the fact that 2001 was still a time of transition, during which the details of the form to be taken by European policy in the areas we are interested in here, and the best mechanisms for implementing that policy, were defined.
Perhaps the most positive element, in Parliament's view, is the fact that the Commission's report very clearly reflects the same policy objectives that this House had recommended on repeated occasions: the achievement of the millennium development objectives, with particular emphasis on the eradication of poverty. Nevertheless, what is less clear is to what extent our actions – which are significant objectively – are contributing to bringing those objectives closer. Furthermore, what is demonstrated is that the complexity of the procedures – which are often excessively bureaucratic – means that, in certain regions and in the year under examination, the Commission was not able to spend a significant proportion of the resources available to it.
Another issue which remains in the air is the quest for greater efficiency in our actions by means of selecting more suitable interlocutors with whom to implement our actions. The participation of non-governmental organisations from our countries is often the determining factor in terms of our interventions achieving good results. In other cases, the cooperation we are able to lend to the United Nations and its specialised agencies on issues of development and humanitarian action appears to be very important.
More questionable is the work the Commission's delegations can carry out directly in the countries benefiting from our aid, undoubtedly as a result of the scandalous restrictions those delegations suffer in terms of personnel.
One of the criticisms which has been expressed most often in our debates relates to the fact that the report being assessed rather mixes up what is genuine development and humanitarian aid with what in 2001 was aid to candidate countries, preparing them for enlargement, and also action in the Balkans, which took up a significant proportion of the budgets available.
Of the conclusions of our resolution, there are one or two I would like to highlight: the first is Parliament’s request – which is being repeated once again – that the European Development Fund (EDF) should be included within the European Union’s ordinary budgets so that it becomes more transparent and subject to Parliament’s control; the second is, in reality, our congratulations to the Commission – and more specifically the people responsible for our actions, both in development cooperation and in humanitarian aid.
We sincerely believe that, despite the criticisms made, there has been considerable progress in terms of what is done in these fields but, above all, we note that there is genuine concern to take stock, expose problems and to seek the participation of many – of Parliament as well, of course – in order to ensure that things are done better every day. That is why one of the recommendations we stress most in our resolution is that the Commission's 2001 report – with its attractive presentation – should be disseminated widely within the countries benefiting from our aid policies and also within our own states, reaching the administrations – and also local administrations, which are often closely involved in cooperation and humanitarian aid policies – and, in particular, the NGOs, which are indispensable and wonderful partners in this work by the European Union."@en1
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