On Wednesday, 13 March, the European Parliament approved the Cooperation Agreement on Partnership and Development between the EU and Afghanistan by 513 votes to 85 with 67 abstentions.
This agreement, signed in February 2017 (see EUROPE 11724/13), has been provisionally applied since 1 December 2017 (see EUROPE 11916/14).
In the River Report by Anna Elżbieta Fotyga (ECR, Poland) linked to this approval, which they adopted by 565 votes to 53 with 55 abstentions, MEPs welcomed this agreement, “the first contractual relationship between the EU and Afghanistan”. According to them, it serves as “a basis for the development of relations in various fields, such as the rule of law, health, rural development, education, science and technology, the fight against corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, organised crime and drug trafficking, migration, nuclear security, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and climate change”. However, the European Parliament regrets that the agreement does not include provisions on parliamentary scrutiny of its implementation.
Many aspects of EU-Afghanistan cooperation are developed in the report, which calls for the strengthening of this cooperation, particularly in the areas of reform, security, trade and development, sectoral cooperation and migration.
The Parliament also asks the Court of Audit to draw up a special report on the effectiveness of EU aid to Afghanistan over the last ten years.
See resolution: https://bit.ly/2JkrdNE. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)