Brussels, 17/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The new guidelines for Community co-operation on development policy (including the reform and management of EU external aid), certain aspects of humanitarian aid and crisis or conflict situations in developing countries will fuel the Development Ministers deliberations, when gathered in Council this Thursday 18 May in Brussels. No formal decision is expected from this session, which will be dominated with discussions whose results could be included in the conclusions or resolutions. Luis Amado, Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation will chair the session. Poul Nielson, development and humanitarian aid Commissioner, will represent the Commission. Below is the agenda for the session:
Community development aid policy:
1. New guidelines for general policy: the Council will have an in-depth debate and could adopt the preliminary conclusions on the new Community development policy outlined by the Commission in a recent communiqué handed to the Council and Parliament (see EUROPE of 27 April, p.11) that Commissioner Nielson will present to the Ministers. The Council should welcome the objective to make the eradication of poverty a top priority and a re-evaluation of Community activities in areas where it has comparative advantages, insisting on the importance of coherence in the policy and underlining the Council's readiness to co-operate with the Commission in the drafting of a general policy declaration that will foreshadow the drafting of a future action plan.
2. Reform of the management of external aid: Poul Nielson will present to the Council the contents of the in-depth reform that the Commission intends to introduce, in the next two years, for the management of aid programmes to third countries so as to increase efficiency (communication approved on Tuesday, in Strasbourg, by the College and presented to the European Parliaments plenary session, see following pages).
3. Operational co-ordination: the Council should adopt the conclusions on the progress achieved in the implementation of the March 1998 guidelines on the strengthening of operational co-operation between Community development policy and those of Member States. Through these conclusions the Council will formulate recommendations in view of improving the global impact of aid provided and will invite the Commission to submit proposals to firm up these proposals.
4. Structural adjustment in developing countries: the Council will adopt a resolution on economic reform programmes and structural adjustment in ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) countries and southern and eastern Mediterranean countries, to follow-up the Commission communication of 4 February 2000 on this issue. The resolution should give indications on the most appropriate way to implement these programmes.
5. Integrating the environmental and sustainable development into development policy: the Council will take note of the Commission report on the progress achieved since November 1999 (date of the last session) in the sectoral integration process demanded by the European Summit in Helsinki. The conclusions it will adopt should invite the Commission to submit to it, in May 2001, a strategy proposal that will act as a basis for the report to be submitted by various parts of the Council at the European Summit in Gothenburg (June 2001).
6. Communicable diseases in developing countries: the Council should adopt conclusions on the negative impact of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis on the economic and social development of developing countries, and on the importance of eradicating these diseases through co-ordinated efforts at an international level to fight against poverty.
Evaluation of humanitarian aid: the Council will hold an in-depth debate and could adopt a detail resolution focusing on elements considered more pertinent to the results of the independent assessment of the Commission activities in this area and to the Commission communication on the assessment and future of Community humanitarian activities. The adoption of the resolution will depend on the capacity of the Minister to resolve the issue that still divides them: is it appropriate to give ECHO (the Community's Humanitarian Aid Office) an operational capacity integrating the political considerations - enabling it to increase the visibility of European policy - or on the other hand observe strict neutrality in the granting of aid in urgent situations?
Crisis and conflict situations in developing countries: the Council will have tan in-depth discussion on emergency situations (conflicts and natural disasters), rehabilitation as transition between emergency aid and development, post-conflict situations and peace building, unstable situations generators of conflicts. Several countries or regions (the region of the African Great Lakes, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Mozambique, Nicaragua, East Timor, Zimbabwe) will serve as examples for examining these issues proposed by the Council Presidency as backdrop for reflection.
Over lunch, Ministers may broach the following questions: a) coherence between the Community's development policy and those of Member states in Burundi and Rwanda, in the framework of the Arusha Peace Process and the Lusaka Agreement; b) education into development cooperation in Member States (at the request of the Development NGO Liaison Committee to the Union); c) the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; the Italian State Secretary and the Union's Special Representative should brief ministers of the latest developments in the region.
The Council will, moreover, informally broach the following issues: - new Parliament/Council co-decision procedures in the field of development (briefing by the Presidency); - state of preparations for the third United Nations conference on the least developed countries (briefing by the Commission); - questions relating to development in the sixth conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Climate Change (presentation by the Danish delegation).