Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-04-Speech-1-076"
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"en.20000904.6.1-076"2
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".
Mr President, MEDA represents the practical implementation, the instrument of our Euro-Mediterranean policy, as defined following the Barcelona Convention in November 1995, followed by a number of forums, particularly those in Malta, Naples and Stuttgart.
Fifthly, on the subject of the six priority areas of partnership, the environment, water policy, industry, energy, transport and the information society, we think it essential to reactivate programmes disregarded until now, the SMAP adopted in Helsinki in 1997 on the environment. At least EUR 10 million must be allocated annually for water. Action must be undertaken to promote renewable energies and to provide support for SMEs and for transport. We should support each country’s sustainable development plans.
We therefore consider it absolutely essential to implement the proposals for regulations suggested by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, particularly those on simplifying procedures in order to increase the transparency, efficiency and speed of payments and on deploying more Commission staff in order to ensure better administration of the programme, which must cease to be a poor relation in comparison with the cooperation programmes for Asian or ACP countries.
At this point I should like to thank not only the many participants, particularly the countries concerned and the NGOs that helped me to finalise this report, but also our European Commissioner, Mr Patten, who has a clear overview of the situation and whose external relations departments should contribute towards improving Mediterranean projects from now on.
Thanks, too, to Mr Patten’s colleagues, especially Mr Patrick Laurent. I should also like to stress the interest which Commissioner Busquin has taken in our work, reactivating Mediterranean cooperation in the field of research, particularly at the forthcoming informal summit on Capri, on 29 September. Thanks are also due to all our fellow Members of Parliament, particularly Mrs Terrón, Mrs McNally and Mr Sami Naïr who are working on this issue.
It is crucial to implement our proposals in order to achieve the necessary revitalisation of the Euro-Mediterranean process. Above all, the appropriations for 2000-2006 should not be penalised because of the programme’s earlier problems. Instead the programme must be the spearhead of our policy, which we shall be discussing again at the Marseilles Conference in November.
We wish the French Presidency every success. I know that they are extremely concerned to resolve all difficulties and determined to achieve their objectives.
We are now presenting the first progress report, or annual report for 1998, but which, in fact, summarises the initial implementation period, 1996-1999, and prepares the way for the implementation of the actions for the second period, 2000-2006, in the form of the regulation proposed by our fellow Member, Mr Valdivielso de Cué. Given that this report is subject to the Hughes Procedure, we have included all the proposals adopted unanimously not only by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which was chiefly responsible, but also those of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
The context is this: approximately EUR 4 billion over the last four years, plus the considerable appropriations contributed by the EIB, have been allocated. The Barcelona Agreement signed by 27 countries, those of the European Union plus the 12 countries of the southern Mediterranean: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. The three main objectives involve the political and security dimension, the economic and financial dimension and the social, cultural and human dimension.
The following observations have been made: this is a programme still in its infancy which has experienced implementation problems and has suffered from various administrative problems, as highlighted by the European Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control. There has been particular criticism of sub-contracting associations such as RTM. In the final analysis, implementation has been virtually paralysed and, despite the almost 100% commitment of appropriations, only 26 % have been paid to date, and that only with difficulty, with payment taking, on average, four years.
We presented the ins and outs of the matter in sufficient detail in our report, so I am now able simply to summarise our conclusions, which are as follows: firstly, there is a need to simplify the regulation in order to enable the process to be speeded up, while ensuring greater transparency by providing the resources necessary for the Commission to plan the programme and for the Council to monitor it. Above all, the European Parliament must take part in the process and must be kept informed more regularly, particularly through the Euro-Mediterranean forum.
It would be appropriate to speed up the signing of the association agreements, which to date have been signed only with 7 countries. This particularly concerns Lebanon, Algeria, Syria, etc.
Secondly, project selection must be more democratic and must, to a greater extent, involve greater participation by civil society and NGOs, who continually expressed this desire, especially at the European Parliament round table held in Brussels on 29 June this year, entitled ‘Towards a sustainable MEDA’.
Thirdly, respect for human rights must be monitored more carefully, for cooperation is not only targeted at economic progress, but is fundamentally related to democracy, freedom, peace, the eradication of inequality, and sustainable development. We would therefore ask that a report on the human rights record of each of the signatory or candidate countries be presented to Parliament annually to be taken into consideration in the selection of projects.
Fourthly, we consider that the 10% of appropriations allotted to regional cooperation are inadequate as compared with the 90% allocated to bilateral cooperation. We must therefore comment on the volume of appropriations dedicated to regional schemes which, we acknowledge, are harder to negotiate and implement but which correspond to the objective of efficiency, particularly in improving South-South relations and, above all, in safeguarding more extensive action for decentralised cooperation, which we all consider to be an important goal."@en1
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