Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-08-Speech-2-341"
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"en.20050308.27.2-341"2
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".
Mr President, you will be very familiar with the work of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly, having been a very effective and hard-working Vice-President of it in the past.
I wish to begin by thanking Mr Bowis for his report, which reflects his own very strong personal commitment not only to the JPA but also to development. His particular interest, knowledge and expertise in relation to health issues have been of great importance to our work in that Assembly. His report shows that the Assembly has grown in maturity over the last few years. Its work needs to flourish and be reinforced in the ways indicated in the report, because the Assembly forms the very democratic foundations of the ACP-EU partnership.
The Cotonou Partnership Agreement emphasises very clearly the importance of the Assembly, but omits to award enough importance, if any at all, to the role of national parliaments in our cooperation. It is very important that the forms of cooperation we have continue beyond the meetings with our parliamentary colleagues so that we can support their efforts, as elected representatives, to conduct dialogue with their governments, to scrutinise the legislation and actions of their governments and to hold their governments to account. Sadly, an inability to do this is often a feature of the relationship between parliaments and governments in developing countries. As the rapporteur suggested, with reference to the Pan-African Parliament, there is often a lack of institutional capacity. Parliaments are short on staff and equipment and often lack the basic technical knowledge needed to make their work more effective. This is an important issue and one we shall pursue in Mali. In fact, just the other day a Member of the Malian Parliament with whom I am in contact told me that it is difficult for parliamentarians there to exercise legislative power, because the executive branch simply does not provide them with information. I agree with Mr Bowis that an important part of our work is to build up this critical democratic culture in the ACP parliaments with which we work.
Central to this are the links with these parliaments that transit through the EDF and financing. As Budget Commissioner, Mrs Grybauskaitė will have a particular interest in ensuring that parliamentarians are aware of how this money is spent in their countries and also in the Economic Partnership Agreements.
Mr Bowis talked about the committee's bedding-down. That is happening and the fact that people are slightly dissatisfied about the amount of time they have is merely symptomatic of how successful the whole process is.
The JPA continues to grow and flourish, nurtured as it is by our determination to increase our effectiveness and to ensure that both our political voice and that of the parliamentarians from the ACP countries are heard. The JPA has a monitoring and supervisory role that is unique. There is nothing else like it in terms of North-South connections between parliamentarians. We must therefore continue to ensure that we can effect change in the 77 developing countries concerned."@en1
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