Brussels, 15/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - Support from EU27 development ministers for the Europe-Africa partnership project for energy and the consensus on the need to provide a boost to the development dimension in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) negotiated between the EU and the six ACP regions, constitute the most important progress at the Informal Development Summit in Petersberg (EUROPE 9385 and 9386). The place reserved for Africa in these discussions is proportional to the attention that will be paid to the continent at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm at the beginning of June. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German federal minister of economic cooperation and development, who chaired the session, underlined this at the end of the work, “Africa is a central subject for the next G8 summit in June. This meeting will be preceded by a meeting between the OECD and NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development: editor's note) in May. We want to clearly show that Africa is not just a continent characterised by disasters, as it is often seen but a continent of great hopes and prospects, with a growth rate above 5%...Africa is beginning to take things in hand”. The president of the Development Council announced that his next visit to Africa would be to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reconstruction in the DRC following its first democratic elections was also the subject of an exchange of views between development ministers during dinner, attended too by Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank.
Wolfowitz and Development Commissioner Louis Michel, returning from a joint mission on 9 March to the country, presented ministers with the integral programme supporting reconstruction in the new Congolese state following the elections, a programme that they debated with the authorities in Kinshasa. “We have been able to promise €161 million from the Commission by the end of the year and €186 million from the World Bank so that the Congolese population can quickly feel the benefits of democratisation. The World Bank-Commission partnership programme is based on the added values of the two institutions, foreshadowing the division of the work” which the Commission hopes to promote, stressed Mr Michel. He announced that on 2 May, the World Bank and the United Kingdom would jointly organise a high level meeting in Brussels to emphasise the importance of making progress in affording children in developing countries access to education.
The issue of sharing the workload on a more effective European development policy between the Commission and member states was the subject of a preliminary exchange of views, based on the code of conduct recently proposed by the Commission (see EUROPE 9376). The debate, which had to be shortened because of the length of time spent in discussion on economic partnership agreements between the EU and ACP countries, was expected to allow ministers to express their point of view on the appropriateness of agreement on joint principles so that each member state restrict what it said on a restricted number of countries and to avoid having those beneficiary countries which were most successful from becoming the “aid darlings” to the detriment of the countries that were the “aid orphans”. When asked about the message received by member states, Mr Michel was optimistic. “I believe there is consensus on the code of conduct. It is going to be suggested that member states respect it. The Commission, too, will respect it, even if it means letting member states take the lead in other sectors. It will be useful that the “Atlas des bailleurs” (Sponsors' Guide) shows what each partner has accomplished”. Improvements will be made, the aim being, Ms Wierczorek-Zeul said, to come to conclusions “on concrete operational principles, and on a structured dialogue on how to improve sponsors' geographical cooperation” at the formal session of the Development Council in May. (an)