Luxembourg, 17/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - EU development ministers meeting in Luxembourg on 16 October debated the common approach for governance in cooperation with ACP countries (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific), neighbourhood policy countries and those in Latin America and Asia, proposed by the Commission last August as a vector for development and not as an instrument of coercion (EUROPE 9254). Conclusions adopted at the end of the debate expressed support from the Council for the holistic and multidimensional approach based on the take-up of democratic governance by EU partner countries and dialogue with them, by favourising reform incentives that will enable the countries concerned to reduce poverty and attain sustainable development for their people.
Louis Michel, Commissioner for development, co-author of this initiative with his colleague at external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, expressed his delight to the press for the positive welcome given to the idea of putting a bit more of Europe in support for governance. He explained that “governance is not only fighting corruption, a symptom of a failing state, but also a much broader approach”. He also underlined that this approach had encountered a lot of success in discussions with the World Bank in Singapore and that it would facilitate concrete results for the respective populations through the authoritative functions of the state, as well as in the provision of basic services. The Commissioner added that, “the €2.7bn available for this imitative will not be used for paying out bonuses to good pupils. Most of it will be used for helping develop countries that have real governance problems”. He summarised the initiative up as “not having conditions that lead to negative sanctions but rather incentives that lead to positive sanctions”.
The Council hopes that the finishing touches to the common approach for supporting governance will be the subject of consultations between the Commission and Member States and will take due account of the experiences acquired in all the regions concerned. It is calling on the European Commission and Member States to deepen their work on common assessment tools and those for inspecting progress by taking into account the efforts made at a European level for gaining better complementarity of interventions between donors. Ministers particularly welcome the initiative for governance as an important stage in the implementation of the EU strategy for Africa adopted in December 2005. (an)