Edinburgh, 24/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - It was with a view to calming the situation that the EU Council and the European Commission intervened at the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) on Wednesday, wishing to reassert their unchanging support for the Millennium Development Goals of ACP countries (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) and their resolve to make the WTO Doha Round a development round as pledged. The Assembly's fears that the vital interests of the ACP countries might be sacrificed on the altar of forced and unjust liberalisation, which could end up making them even more marginalised, certainly needed some comforting less than three weeks from the opening of the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong. The same day, the two JPA joint presidents - British Labour member Glenys Kinnock and Jamaican MP Sharon Hay-Webster - sent a letter to the president of the Agriculture Council, Margaret Beckett, to formally request that the EU keep to its commitments under the Cotonou Agreement on preferences granted to ACP farm products, and to sugar in particular. The joint presidents also called for sufficient resources to be made available to ACP countries through a rapid and automatic disbursement mechanism in order to finance the action plan for restructuring and modernising the ACP sugar industry and to guarantee equal treatment between ACP and European producers (see other article).
Speaking before the JPA, Gareth Thomas, British Under-Secretary of State for Development, recalled the “historic commitment” taken by the EU at the last G8 summit (Gleneagles, Scotland) to double the level of its official development aid by 2010, to reach 0.7% of its GDP in 2015, and to “galvanise the global fight against poverty”, especially in Africa. In this respect, he welcomed the agreement in Council last Monday on a Commission/Council/Parliament declaration establishing a new framework for the EU's development policy and for a new EU strategy for Africa which will be subject to approval by the European Council in December (EUROPE 9073). The President confirmed the EU's commitment to ensure takeover of the 9th EDF with an allocation at least equivalent, and the hope that the summit in December will be able to give concrete substance to this firm commitment. Speaking of the fight against AIDS - another priority of the British EU Presidency - Mr Thomas announced a top level EU/Africa/Asia/Latin America conference on 30 November (the day before the World Day for combating AIDS), that will formally launch the EU declaration on AIDS prevention. Also, he recognised the importance of WTO negotiations as “in the long term, fair and freer trade holds the key to improving the lives of poor people”. “We must ensure that the Doha Round reaches an ambitious result (…) With our partners, we are determined to do everything in our power to ensure this. We are aware of the need for a substantial, global and credible “Aid for Trade” package to help poor countries become the winners of the Doha Round”, he said. Taking his time over the ACP agricultural commodities which are of particular concern for the JPA, Gareth Thomas assured that everything would be done to find an urgent solution for ACP bananas. He also spoke of the Council's hope that a rapid agreement would be reached with Parliament on an adequate package of transitional aid for ACP sugar producing countries, and an aid allocation for 2006. Aid in the longer term depends on an agreement on EU financial perspectives, he recalled, inviting the ACP countries to produce national plans as soon as possible. Glenys Kinnock jumped at the opportunity to observe that the Mauritius plan alone, which has already been presented in good and due form, amounts to EUR 65 million.
Roger Marie Rafanomezantsoa, Minister for Industrialisation, Trade and Development in Madagascar, recently President-in-Office of the ACP Council, restated the ACP call for greater equity and flexibility in WTO rules. The ACP-EU partnership agreement, in this 21st century, is a special and exemplary agreement - it is up to us to make it a performant and adaptable tool that reacts to changes in society in North and South, he said. The ACP Council president announced that the trade ministers of the G90 (Alliance between the ACP Group, the African Union and the developing countries, formed in 2003 in Cancun) will be meeting in Brussels on 30 November to confirm the position taken by the ACP Group during the formal and informal WTO talks. The ACP Council of Ministers (from 5 to 9 December) will present a declaration to the ministerial conference in Hong Kong stating the group's “complete position”.
Commissioner Louis Michel, confident in the approval of the European Consensus on development of the new EU Strategy for Africa, spoke of an “unprecedented qualitative leap” for future cooperation that will be “more operational, less bureaucratic and more harmonised”. This “European consensus”, which united Council, Parliament and Commission for the first time around common principles and objectives, will not replace the Cotonou Accord but major elements of the Cotonou philosophy are taken up in a declaration which has much broader scope and “our policies will be all the more consistent because of it”, the againCommissioner said. He felt that the “central objective is more than ever reduction of poverty”. Convinced that development is a vital element for long term security, the most effective answer to forced migration, he echoed parliamentarians' concern for the fate reserved for illegal migrants in Europe (the JPA adopted a resolution demanding that the Ceuta and Melilla drama, which is such a universal disgrace, should never happen againo).
In order to give good measure with the strategy for Africa, the Commissioner announced his intention to present, "in the next few months", "communications on our relations with the Caribbean and Pacific". As for the funding of ACP/EU cooperation, Mr Michel said that everything would be done to ensure that the ninth EDF would be fully committed by the end of 2007 and that, whether or not the EDF was budgetised, aid continuity as of 1 January 2008 would be assured. "I will not tolerate any delay with getting things started post-9th EDF", he said, stating that the programming of the successor to the EDF would start early in 2006 (an ad hoc budgetisation for a transitional period is the solution put forward by President Barroso). During the debate, Miguel Angel Martinez-Martinez (Spanish Socialist) congratulated the Commissioner on having, "for the first time, consulted and involved the Parliament" in the declaration on the development policy of the EU. Showered with questions on trade, Mr Michel replied unhesitatingly, without wanting to "substitute" for his colleague Mr Mandelson (who had been invited to attend by the JPA, but was called elsewhere by preparations for Hong Kong). Answering a question put by Mr Faure (Seychelles), who said that "we cannot start to discuss EPAs (economic partnership agreements) for development and only get to talk to DG Trade", Mr Michel replied that there is constant consultation between DG Development and DG Trade, and that he would be meeting Commissioner Mandelson on Friday to discuss the role of development in the EPAs. He added that "in Hong Kong, there will be a mixed team of negotiators". In answer to a question put by an MP from Surinam, who asked him about the new tariff of 179 EUR a tonne proposed for bananas, Mr Michel replied that "upstream of the negotiations, we continue to defend the highest tariff possible. We will take your interests into account (...)". Downstream, the development policy also has a role to play "to heal the wounds", by dint of accompanying measures, for any disadvantages suffered by our partners. Mr Mandelson is very "development minded". "It is not the Commission which is calling for the tariff to be revised downwards, but certain Member States of the Council". When asked about the 40 million EUR of compensation earmarked for ACP sugar (the exact equivalent of the estimated loss to be suffered by Guyana alone, as Mr Ramatar, a member of this country's parliament, observed), Mr Michel replied: "this sum falls outside the EDF envelope. Obviously, it is not much, but it is for 2006. The Commission will propose considerably higher envelopes for 2007-2013. I will be in a stronger position once all national strategies are on the table. Count on me to push to get the maximum for you". To a parliamentarian from Mali who ask him whether he was in favour of demands by the ACP countries to remove the internal support and export subsidies of the rich countries to "allow the poorest farmers to live on the fruits of their labour", Louis Michel replied: "yes, resolutely yes, but this is a question you would be better off asking the United States than the EU".