Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-28-Speech-4-039"
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"en.20060928.5.4-039"2
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".
Mr President, our thanks must go, in the first place, to Mr Hutchinson for this important report. If development aid is to be effective, that presupposes that the EU’s approaches to aid and trade will be mutually coherent. If we want to achieve the Millennium Goals in 2015, aid and trade must – as they indeed can – complement one another, but the lamentable reality is that they often do not. Aid and trade policies – including agriculture – still, all too often operate in isolation from one another, and that is surely one reason why it will take another century for us to make poverty in Africa a thing of the past.
At the moment, little is being said about the coherence of Europe’s policies. Commissioner Mandelson’s negotiators preach free trade subject to global rules, while the people under Commissioner Michel work for development and try to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and policy on agricultural subsidies runs counter to what either camp is aiming for. I regard the various policy fields as comparable to ‘ships that pass in the night’.
In this situation, alas, it is all too often the development aspect that gets squeezed out; for example, trade considerations loom far too large in economic policy agreements, the renowned – or sometimes, perhaps, notorious – Peas. When it comes to development, those who seek aid are all too often pointed towards existing funds, and there is far too little evidence of a truly integrated approach, which really would involve extra money and new development plans being put on the table, despite the fact that it is the EPAs, taking as they do enhanced local cooperation as their starting point, that could help to make aid more effective.
In this respect, we have to take it as read that, in the development field, precautions have to be taken to protect the weaker negotiating parties, so that honest agreements and a realistic timeframe can emerge from the EPAs. If trade is to really ‘take off’, then such things as, for example, the reform of the taxation system with the replacement of duties paid when crossing borders, stronger public and social service institutions, better education and health care, are indispensable. The current lack of coordination and coherence is not merely inefficient but also unacceptable on the grounds that it goes against Article 178 of the Treaty.
One of the reasons for this is that the knowledge and expertise of the trade experts, or, conversely of the developers, often impinge on each other’s area of work, and another is the lack of willingness to tot up the real costs and benefits of integrated development and, together – which means in the Council, too – to seek new funding for it. Moreover, it is often the case that European policies – in such areas as agriculture, trade and development, among others – have the effect of working against each other, export subsidies enable agriculture to dump its products in North Africa, with a consequent increase in unemployment there. Those in charge of immigration complain about the flow of economic refugees from the region and do little by way of providing aid, preferring instead to work on sound agreements on the regional labour market.
The only thing that could make a substantial improvement to the situation would be a coherent European agenda from the Commission and the Council. Global trade is important and of great benefit in enabling developing countries to escape from the vicious cycle of poverty; much is to be gained by a good combination of aid and trade, and the process of combining the two must not be allowed to stand in the way of these countries’ development; it is in this way that we will be able to achieve the Millennium Goals. What I am calling for is a coherent European agenda; the new development cooperation instrument can provide it with a framework."@en1
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