Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-17-Speech-4-159"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051117.19.4-159"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, we are now going to debate what, for Parliament, is a unique report. The European Parliament has, for the first time, been invited to participate actively in devising the EU’s development policy. When the current policy was decided on, Parliament was not involved in any way. In our view, the ongoing process, aimed at producing a tripartite agreement between the Commission, the Council and Parliament, is a great step forward. The present report constitutes Parliament’s response to the original proposal for a policy statement and our contribution to the negotiations.
Since the original development policy was adopted in 2000, our world has undergone a number of changes. There are therefore powerful reasons to amend our policy and to design a new one. The agenda has changed, and issues of coherence, coordination and so forth have been given ever greater prominence. This is a quite splendid state of affairs, I think. Our report refers to the commitments to increased aid that have been made by a number of Member States and that will mean that the volume of EU aid over the next few years will be significantly increased. That is, of course, excellent. It is, however, just as important to debate quality as quantity. That is something we are trying to do in a constructive way in our report.
All in all, the EU is the world’s leading aid donor. However, the effectiveness and quality of our aid have not, to date, been commensurate with its volume. Commissioner Michel himself did of course indicate a large number of major shortcomings, especially in the way in which aid has been coordinated in the past. There is poor coordination between one EU Member State and another, as well as between the Member States, on the one hand, and both the Commission and other donors, on the other. This means high transaction costs and a great deal of duplication, together with difficulties for our partner countries. The new development policy we are now debating establishes favourable preconditions for progress in this field. Issues of harmonisation are being given prominence.
In addition to donor coordination and coherence, our report highlights a number of substantial issues to which we want to give added weight. These include democracy and human rights, measures to combat corruption, the important roles to be played by civil society and also by the national parliaments, the importance of strengthening the role of women in development work and the importance of paying more attention to the significance of natural resources, that is to say of forests, farmland and water and marine resources, especially in relation to the world’s very poorest countries. In addition, we discuss the importance of health and education issues, which we have been pushing for many years in Parliament, as well as increased efforts to combat the HIV epidemic. Finally, we refer, in particular, to the considerable problems encountered by many countries in tropical areas due to the more unstable climate.
I should like to thank my colleagues for their very constructive cooperation. In my view, we have produced a kind of consensus document. There is one aspect with which we are especially pleased, namely the fact that, together with the Commission and the Council, we have, in this process, succeeded in conducting a constructive debate in which we have tried, as far as possible, to define the specific role of the Commission in the context of development. The Commission must not act as a 26th Member State in terms of aid donations, but must, naturally, make use of its special authority, its special capacity, its neutrality and its multilateral character in order to give some impetus to these issues and make certain things better than other institutions are able to. In this process, we have identified a number of areas in which the Commission, if I may put it like this, can make a difference and add value.
Finally, I want to thank you for your constructive cooperation. I hope that, during the next few weeks, we shall be able to arrive at a final document and that, in time, we shall be able to return to this question here in Parliament and have a broader debate in which the Council too can participate so that we might together also discuss how, subsequently, we might best begin to implement the new development policy and this policy statement."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples