Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-12-Speech-3-134"
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"en.20051012.15.3-134"2
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"Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, before beginning, I should like to express my sadness and indignation following this weekend’s events in Darfur. The loss of two soldiers and two civilians belonging to the African Union peace-keeping mission in Darfur has been a shock for all of us. The European Commission vigorously condemns this cruel and cowardly act. I should like to express my most sincere condolences to the African Union and to all the soldiers of the mission, and I should like to say to them that Europe supports them more than ever in the quest for peace.
First principle: equality. The emergence of the African Union and the regional economic communities, on the one hand, and the consolidation of European integration, on the other, have created a more symmetrical and more equal institutional framework. Europe has more to offer than development aid. It has a unique experience of integration, dialogue and the construction of supranational political institutions, despite the fact that integration has sometimes been slow and has never been easy.
Second principle: partnership. The European Union and Africa share the same values and the same objectives. We believe in a much more multilateral world order, fairer development and the promotion of diversity. More than ever, our two continents must be strategic allies within the international community.
Third principle: appropriation. Development policies and strategies cannot be imposed from the outside. The African Union’s and NEPAD’s vision of good governance, democracy and respect for human rights deserves the European Union’s support. This purely African initiative has brought a new dimension to the concept of appropriation as a basis for dialogue and cooperation with each country and region and with the continent as a whole.
The very wording of the strategy for Africa is the prime example of the way in which these three principles should be applied. I should also like to thank the regional organisations and the African Union for their exhaustive, constructive and judicious contribution to drawing up the document. Too often, strategies were prepared ‘in relation to’ or ‘for’ our African partners, rather than with them.
Honourable Members, in requesting, almost a year ago, the portfolio of European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, I was well aware that Africa would remain central to my action and commitment. I cannot conceal from you my satisfaction in seeing today that the entire European Commission has committed itself to this same effort. The joint meeting with the Commission of the African Union has shown just how motivated and committed my colleagues are. Europe now has an unprecedented opportunity to put a new partnership between the African and European continents in place. The Commission is presenting you with a plan, a vision and a coherent and integrated set of practical and ambitious proposals. It is now up to yourselves as Members of the European Parliament and of the Council to assume your responsibilities.
Five years after the Cairo Summit, I think that the moment has come to convert our dialogue into action. We must work together in order to break the current deadlock and allow the Lisbon Summit to be held. A Lisbon Summit crowned with success will be a moment of great symbolic value in which we shall confirm the ever closer partnership between our two continents and in which we shall conclude a new and ambitious Euro-African pact.
Mr President, honourable Members, with the adoption, today, of a European strategy on Africa, the European Commission is taking, I think, a giant step towards a new political partnership between Europe and Africa – a strategic, solid and rational partnership between, on the one hand, an enlarged Europe and, on the other hand, a renewed Africa. For too long, relations between Europe and Africa have been characterised by a lack of consistency between the definition and implementation of policies; between, on the one hand, the policies and actions of certain Member States and, on the other, those of the European Commission; between the approach adopted in sub-Saharan Africa and that adopted in North Africa; between cooperation in connection with trade and that in connection with economic development; and between initiatives in connection with traditional socio-economic development and measures in connection with strategic policy. Neither Europe nor Africa could tolerate this situation going on any longer.
The purpose of the new strategy on Africa that I am presenting to you today is, therefore, to provide the EU with a single, global and integrated framework for managing its relations with Africa in the long term. For the first time, Europe is coherently addressing Africa as a whole from Cairo to the Cape. Even if Africa has several faces, several histories and different needs, it has now embarked as a single entity on the road to the political, economic and cultural integration of the whole continent. This commitment has been given concrete expression by the efforts to integrate the regional economic communities and by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, or NEPAD, and the launch of the African Union. These organisations now embody the hope of the continent. I also remember the scepticism surrounding the creation of the African Union three years ago. Now, remarkable progress in all areas, particularly those of peace and security, can be observed. The African Union is a major strategic player and, I would even venture to say, a player that, as far as we are concerned, cannot be ignored on the African continent. Europe has a duty to respond to the call from an Africa in which a lot is happening.
For the first time too, this strategy creates a framework of action for Europe as a whole. It is not a question of eliminating the various national policies. I shall go on repeating that these national policies have their own specific character and added value. No, it is, rather, a question of creating a coherent framework for reinforcing collective action at European level. Together, we are more effective and count for more. Enlargement of the European Union to include ten new Member States has reinforced this need because it has increased the number of potential individual partners to 26: 25 Member States plus the European Community.
It is not enough for EU aid to increase. Its effectiveness needs also to be improved. In the past, the absence of coordination and complementarity between donors has often prevented development policies leading to practical and effective results. The European Union has already done a lot to improve this situation, particularly within the framework of the High Level Forum on the effectiveness of aid, held in Paris in March 2005. I think, however, that we must go further. That is why I propose establishing next year an action plan for aid effectiveness which we would apply, as a priority, in sub-Saharan Africa. This action plan will contain practical tools once, for example, an operational and interactive atlas of EU donors has been created, national ‘road maps’ harmonised, joint programming documents adopted and common procedures drawn up. Some might consider this initiative to be a departure from the norm. In fact, it is only a matter of applying what we have all already decided on.
I also think that the European Union should broaden its budgetary support both generally and on a sectoral basis. That would not only make EU aid more transparent and predictable and give it more continuity, but would also give the EU much more collective influence through the action it takes. For the first time, the European Union finally possesses a global and integrated framework for its different policies for administering its relations with Africa. As I have already said on several occasions in this very Chamber, priority will be given to sub-Saharan Africa in applying all the decisions we have taken in terms of increasing the quantity, quality, effectiveness and coherence of aid.
Let us return to the subject of coherence. Until now, policies on Africa governing trade, security, the environment and what is referred to as development coexisted as best they could. It has to be said that these policies were not always articulated and were even contradictory sometimes. For example, European security policy has for a long time coexisted with its development policy, sometimes to no good effect. Recent experience – and I am thinking in particular of opportunities for peace in Africa – show how security and development are intimately linked and how important it is for European policies in these areas to be tightly coordinated.
Honourable Members, the central objective of the European Union strategy for Africa is to make it easier to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals in Africa. In my opinion, these need to be our points of departure and of reference. That is why the Commission proposes a triple strategy: firstly, to reinforce policies in those areas – for example, peace and security and good governance - considered to be those in which preliminary conditions have to be met in order for the development goals to be achieved; secondly, to reinforce the policies – for example, on trade, development of the private sector and the connection between the two - that create the economic environment necessary for achieving these goals; and, finally, to strengthen policies in the areas directly linked to the development goals, such as health, education, employment and the environment.
Together, these measures constitute a joint, global and coherent response by the European Union to the challenge of African development. These measures are ambitious and are obviously very wide-ranging indeed but, in order fundamentally to change the course of history, we need to do more: we need to clarify our basic approach, the spirit of our relations and, perhaps also sometimes, our mentality. That is why the communication proposes adapting the principles governing relations between Europe and Africa to a new African and European reality. In order to do this, three key principles have to be applied: equality, appropriation and dialogue. We shall have to replace culpability and charity as determining factors in our partnership."@en1
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