Brussels, 23/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - At the initiative of the Netherlands and Belgium and on the basis of a discussion paper drawn up by Secretary General and High Representative Javier Solana, the General Affairs Council adopted, on Monday, lengthy Conclusions on the conflicts in Africa, the Great Lake region, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said he was "particularly pleased" with the Conclusions on the Great Lake region, in that the Council:
- "encourages the Secretary General/High Representative, assisted by the Special Representative for the Great Lakes region, to continue and step up the activities of the EU in the Great Lakes region", a phrase added to the draft text at a request by the Netherlands backed by Belgium;
- not only states it is willing, where necessary to fully use the Lomé instruments and other appropriate budgetary lines to provide, in addition to considerable humanitarian aid, substantial aid to reconstruction and development, democratisation and institutional development in the Great Lakes region. It also added the following at the express request of Belgium: "In this regard, the Council invited the Commission to consider ways to increase development cooperation with the DRC (Ed.: Democratic Republic of Congo) and Burundi, notably in order to promote the implementation of the respective peace-processes and towards democratisation". During the round the table discussion, the Belgian minister had affirmed that the principle whereby international aid and assistance can only follow the reestablishment of peace must be rethought, its methodological approach being that it is in the name of partnership towards peace that we must act with a view to being able to reach, in a near future, a partnership in peace. It is in this context that Mr Michel urged for increased EU aid to the Congo and to Burundi, considerable amounts being, in his view, mobilised under the 7th and 8th EDF and STABEX. Belgium also urged, still with the Netherlands (and Denmark), in favour of finalisation of modalities of an embargo on weapons against the parties to the conflict. Following the refusal by France (which fears it would thus promote the illegal arms trade), this point of view was not followed, and the GAC simply instructed the relevant bodies with examining how appropriate it is to decree an embargo on arms against the parties to the conflict and to define measures aimed at combating the unlawful trade and activities linked to the conflict.
EUROPE will publish these Conclusions in full in EUROPE/Documents.
