Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-17-Speech-4-151"
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"en.20051117.18.4-151"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Martens, ladies and gentlemen, obviously I should like first of all to welcome most of the interventions, because they really are very much in line with the convictions underlying my communication on Africa. With the exception of perhaps one or two points, I can wholeheartedly agree with all of the comments that I have heard.
I should like all the same to remind you that there is still around EUR 35 million in the Peace Facility. But you should be aware that our work is not finished in Sudan (Darfur, and so on). No doubt we will also need a stronger Peace Facility in the DRC at some point; at least this cannot be ruled out. As for Somalia, I had a meeting with the Prime Minister of that country yesterday and he too needs the Peace Facility to be stepped up in his country as a means of guaranteeing security. I can therefore safely assume that this facility is going to need a lot more money. I fear that we will not be able to leave Sudan in the immediate future.
I also have to say that this Peace Facility is an extremely useful, indeed indispensable, tool, if we want Africans in principle also to take ownership of issues such as conflict prevention, peace-keeping, post-conflict situations, and so on, so as quite simply to create the conditions for a return to stability. In conclusion, I assume so. I have to be pragmatic. It is very easy to say, ‘The principle please, nothing but the principle’. The result? There will not be another euro to put in the Peace Facility, and we will find ourselves totally powerless to pursue the policies that we have to pursue. I hope that as soon as possible we will have the financial perspective and the Stability Instrument, which should, under normal circumstances, finance the Peace Facility and enable the problem to be resolved.
There is one thing that I did not fully understand with regard to coordination amongst the African countries. Mrs Auken, I am in favour of also encouraging coordination between the African countries. Coordination is required at every level: at national level, because it is our aid and because it has to fit in with the government’s poverty reduction strategy; at regional level and at international level, with the other donors. I sincerely believe, therefore, that coordination is also an important factor, over and above coordination between our own Member States.
I think it was Mr Libicki who highlighted the need for aid at local level. I agree wholeheartedly. Moreover, that is precisely why we have set aside significant sums to support decentralisation. I have had a meeting with Ousmane Sy, the former Minister of the Interior in Mali, to whom we have, by the way, recently awarded a prize in Belgium, to discuss this: he is preparing a study on decentralisation for the Commission, for me in this case, with particular reference to the DRC. He has considerable expertise on this subject. I have also personally chaired working meetings in Rwanda on decentralisation and I have seen evidence of the positive impact that this has had on the ground. I therefore share this point of view.
On the other hand, I do not think that we are adopting an ideological stance by referring to reproductive health. I would say that this is not about ideology but about humanism, and humanism, I believe, is part of the common heritage of all democrats.
Regarding the WTO meeting in Hong Kong, Mr Rübig, as you well know, we are very mindful of this issue and we are still hoping that we will be able to reach a positive agreement in Hong Kong. As far as your proposal for the EIB is concerned, I can tell you – and this is important because it is along exactly the same lines as you suggested – that we are working with Mr Philippe Maystadt on a proper strategy. At the very beginning of next year – I met Mr Maystadt on Monday and we will be having another meeting in December – we will probably be signing a memorandum of understanding between the EIB and the Commission so as, firstly, to pool resources, but also to ensure that the decisions taken by the EIB that relate to development take better account of the development aspect and of the risk associated with that.
I think I have already responded to Mr Schapira in my answer to another question: the European Union – the Commission and the Member States together – contributes more than 60% of the Global Fund. Mrs Hall believes that we should put in more funding. I would say that we are obviously heavily involved in preparing for and monitoring elections, whether it be in the DRC or elsewhere, and you yourself wanted to highlight the fact that we have made a difference in the DRC, so far. This does not mean that everything is going to be easily resolved and that the situation does not remain fragile, but I see that so far, the latest figure – I receive figures every day – for voters who have registered in the DRC is 21 761 000. I have to tell you that we had set a target of 15 million: we are well above that and it is all the same encouraging to see that the population has responded in such great numbers.
As far as malaria is concerned, be assured that, as part of the Sixth Framework Programme for Research, the Commission is funding the necessary research to find a vaccine for malaria. We are very much involved here too, as you are concerned that we should be.
Mr Gahler said that the countries of Europe often continue to act like neo-colonial powers, by for example controlling natural resources. I have nothing to reply on this point. Let me simply tell you that my entire strategy seeks to move us away from these habits or reflexes, whether conscious or not, of paternalism and neo-colonialism. To conclude, I should like to say that the very foundation, the philosophy, underlying what we have proposed, is the principle of ownership. Moreover, I hope, Mr President – and I will conclude with this – that the translation of the word ‘ownership’ has been corrected in the French version: it had been translated into French using the word for ‘property’, which is not really the same thing as ‘ownership’. Ownership is therefore at the very heart of this new relationship that we want to establish with our African friends.
There you have it, Mr President; I think I have been as comprehensive as I can. In any case, I should like to thank all of those Members who have supported us so actively. In particular I should like to thank Mrs Martens, who has drafted an absolutely outstanding report. I hope that all of this will help us in Monday’s Council meeting to make progress on our common cause, which is our concern for Africa and the need to open up to this continent.
Firstly, I should like to say that I obviously agree that there is a need to improve the coordination, convergence and coherence of actions, and that this forms an essential part of the communication and the political line that I am trying to develop. As you will be aware – and I think that Parliament will be able to offer very effective help here – in this connection I have made a proposal, currently being debated by the Council, to quickly implement an action plan, an action plan that does not consist only of words, no, an action plan comprising genuine and tangible commitments, such as, for example, a joint country strategy paper for the Member States and the Commission. We could debate this together. It will not be compulsory for the Member States, but I believe that it would nonetheless be a significant step forward if, instead of having 26 documents or 26 different strategies, one per country, we had just one. It would be worthwhile. That is what I have proposed in the action plan. A second aspect would also be to have joint programming. This would be a further strand of this action plan.
For the time being, I have to admit that the Council is hesitating and that we are doing all we can to actually push this small measure through. It is difficult to achieve, despite the fact that it would obviously only be on a voluntary basis, as development – as I have had occasion to say in the past – is an area of shared competence; there is therefore nothing to fear in terms of Member States’ sovereignty, but it would constitute quite significant progress.
As far as the three pillars are concerned, obviously the Millennium Development Goals are the priority. I see that everyone agrees on this point. But I think that it is difficult to isolate this third pillar from the first two, because we cannot achieve the Millennium Development Goals without peace and security and Africa itself shows that we cannot achieve them if we disregard growth and interconnectivity. It is clear that without infrastructure, without measures to open up the regions of Africa and without genuinely transcontinental infrastructure enabling production to be economically liberalised – I am thinking in particular of sub-Saharan Africa – the task will be extremely difficult. If we do not combine the third and second pillars then development will be reduced purely and simply to a large-scale charitable operation, which no one here wants, with the inevitable result that the developing countries will be dependent on us, the donors, which we do not want either.
To respond to Mr Pflügler, who made sure to raise the issue of human rights, I obviously agree with him that this is absolutely crucial. One brief comment, however: I think that if, under well-defined conditions, we were able to increase the proportion of budgetary support, we would be in a better position to negotiate substantial improvements in human rights, but this is a debate to which we will no doubt have the opportunity to return.
As far as business is concerned, as I have said, I am working on this at the moment – I announced as much and I will shortly be presenting the communication in question – and I have put forward the idea of having an ethical and social label for companies working in developing countries. I have also proposed setting up a permanent Europe-Africa business forum.
As for the fact that I apparently proposed a reduction in the AIDS budget, I am not at all sure where that information came from, but it must be a misunderstanding. What is true is that, when I went to London to the Global Fund Replenishment Conference, I unfortunately only had EUR 90 million available to offer.
Having said that, I should like nonetheless to remind you – I am not after all going to take the blame every day – that Europe provides more than 60% of the donations to this Global Fund. This is not insignificant. The contribution of all of the Member States and the Commission represents a little over 60% of the Global Fund. I therefore did not propose reducing our contribution to the fund; I simply placed in it the money that I had for this financial year, for 2006, all of the money that I had left for 2006. I cannot do anything for 2007, because we do not have the financial perspective. Besides, I have to confess that the whole business is rather comical: the UK Presidency was pushing me to go further, but it was easy for me to reply, ‘I would be happy to do so, but you will have to help me out here.’
Concerning the African troops, I should like to clarify matters a little. I think that in principle you are right that the money required to fund the Peace Facility should come from a source other than the development budget. I think that we agree on the principle. But if we do not have a financial perspective, and if the evaluation that is going to be made of the effectiveness and the positive impact of the Peace Facility – an evaluation which will obviously prove to be very interesting and very positive – concludes that we need to allocate more funds to this Peace Facility when there is no financial perspective, I wonder whether one solution might perhaps be to use certain uncommitted funds, to convert resources that are already committed, resources that we know full well will not be used for some time, as a means of provisionally replenishing the Peace Facility."@en1
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