On Tuesday, 2 April, at the request of MEPs from the European Parliament's Committee on Development, the Commission clarified the timetable and arrangements for the EU's contribution to July’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and September’s UN Summit, both taking place in New York.
The Commission’s representative, Gaspar Frontini, told the Committee Chair Linda McAvan (S&D, UK), that, in July, the Commission will present to the UN the first ever joint performance report from the EU and its Member States on the implementation of Agenda 2030 and its 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Because of the European elections, the Parliament - which adopted its position in March, in response to the reflection paper ‘A sustainable Europe by 2030’, presented by the Commission after the expected submission date (see EUROPE 12214/10, 12194/14) - will not be able to send a delegation to the High-Level Political Forum. Mrs McAvan therefore noted that Parliament had voted in favour of the most ambitious option (option 1: a truly holistic strategy).
The new post-election Parliament will be able to send a delegation to the September summit.
Gaspar Frontini assured MEPs that "their key messages have been included in the joint synthesis report that is still in the drafting process". He went on to say: "We hope to adopt this report at the end of April to allow the Council of the EU to examine it before it is presented to the High-Level Political Forum”. The intention is to have a report every four years, starting this year.
Progress so far. He believes that this report, which was prepared in close cooperation with Member States, should highlight the fact that, in general, the EU and Member States are doing a lot in a large number of countries in almost all the SDG sectors.
The report should report progress in improving joint working with Member States, in joint programming and joint implementation, but also in how the EU and the 28 Member States deal with interconnectedness of the SDGs and how they include sustainability concerns in the development agenda. Mention will also be made of improvements in programmes to combat extreme poverty, addressing inequality as a priority issue, promoting peace and stability, implementing official development assistance commitments, how we have tried to tailor our cooperation to particular countries’ circumstances and the circumstances in the least developed countries, and how we are coordinating/cooperating with all of our development partners (NGOs and the UN).
Areas for improvement. The report will focus on what needs to be improved in the future: aligning cooperation more closely on the SDGs and Agenda 2030, continuing our work with Member States, structuring dialogue on the SDGs with partner countries, improving data collection to come up with new structures and new SDGs.
“The report should be solid, succinct, targeted and communicable”, said Frontini. 15 pages or so will highlight the main points of what the EU and the 28 Member States are doing towards the five strands of Agenda 2030. Pages in the appendix will evaluate each SDG one at a time.
For the September summit, the aim is to adopt “a political declaration that will make it possible to work on making quicker progress in the future. It should not be an opportunity to unravel Agenda 2030”, said Frontini. The General Affairs Council of the EU will adopt the report’s conclusions on sustainable development on Tuesday 9 April. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)