Strasbourg, 22/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 18 March, with the adoption of the first reading in co-decision of the report by Gay Mitchell (EPP-ED, Ireland) on the proposal to set in place the new instrument for development and economic cooperation for the period 2007-2013, the European Parliament found a solution to maintain its power of co-decision and determine the political priorities of the EU's development policy. By adopting the report, it decided to limit the scope of the instrument to the developing countries and to set in place a separate regulation for economic cooperation with industrialised countries. If this were not the case, the EP would lose its co-decision powers from 2007 when defining development policy. This claim was accepted by the European Commission. The text thus amended must be examined by the Council of Ministers with a view to an agreement on a common position.
According to the amendments adopted by the EP, the possible suspension of EU aid to third countries will be decided by the Council enacting by qualified majority upon opinion from the European Parliament. The development and economic cooperation instrument has a budget of €15.1 billion for the period 2007-2013. It is based on the Commission's proposals for rationalising EU external policy over the next financial period. The three other instruments proposed are the partnership and European neighbourhood instrument (€10.5 billion over seven years), the pre-accession instrument (€10.2 billion) and the stability instrument to face up to crises and instability in third countries (€2.5 billion).