Brussels, 11/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - EU-Africa relations ahead of the Europe-Africa summit in Lisbon on 8 December and the effectiveness of European aid dominated discussions at the first meeting of the European Parliament development committee, chaired by Josep Borrell, after the summer break. The meeting on Monday 10 September saw lively exchanges with European Development Commissioner Louis Michel and Richard Manning, Chairman of the OECD's development assistance committee (DAC), on the interest presented by a joint Europe-Africa strategy and on the ways to make real improvements in the coordination and coherence of the EU's development policy.
Maria Martens (EPP-ED, Netherlands), the rapporteur on the Europe-Africa summit, presented in draft form the own initiative report which she is drafting on the current situation in relations between the two continents. She said “it is important that we have a long-term vision and a short-term action plan”, and everything had to be done to take the pan-African Parliament into account to pass on this joint vision. The form of the text is very close to that of the report on the EU strategy for Africa adopted in 2005. For the joint EU-Africa strategy, due to be adopted at the highest level in Lisbon, the five priority areas are the same, she said: - peace and security; - governance and mutual responsibility - economic growth, trade and regional integration; - investment in human resources; - implementation of the strategy “which needs a clear financial structure”, Ms Martens said. Time is of the essence because this report will be put to the vote in committee on 12 or 13 October (the deadline for notification of amendments has been set for 17 September) before its adoption at the plenary session in Strasbourg.
Speaking on behalf of the Commission, Mr Michel stressed the fundamental importance of the European Parliament's vision. “Too much time has passed since the Cairo summit in 2000. Other players have emerged,” he pointed out, regretting that the EU-China summit last November had taken place before the second Euro-African summit. He felt that the aim of the Lisbon summit was to create an “overall political alliance between the peoples of the two continents” to give a joint response to the new international situation. At this “pivotal stage in the negotiation of the common strategy”, Mr Michel said he thought a joint proposal from the two Parliaments would be welcome.
In response to MEPs like Michael Gahler (EPP-ED, Germany) who questioned him about the added value of such a strategy compared to the one adopted in 2005, and to the 2000 Cotonou Agreement with the ACP (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) countries, Mr Michel said “the 2005 strategy was our European vision”. He stressed the “qualitative leap” that drafting a strategy with Africans represented - a political strategy between “real partners”.
Glennys Kinnock (PES, UK), certain that the Europe-Africa summit will be dominated by Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiated with ACP countries, said that it was up to Parliament to stress the need for coherence between the EPAs and trade links with Africa. Mr Michel acknowledged that the EPAs would be “one of the sensitive issues” and that “speaking about economic growth without speaking about the implementation of EPAs would not make any sense”. To British Conservative MEP Nirj Deva who asked him outright if he had any way to stop Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, from attending the summit because of his record of violation of human rights and democratic principles, Mr Michel replied in a similarly frank manner: “I share your opinion of Mugabe, but I feel that nothing can further delay this summit”. He went on: “I can see no appropriate way”.
Effectiveness of aid: member states and bureaucratic procedures criticised
Mr Manning's presentation of the DAC examination report, published on 4 July (see EUROPE 9462), the fruit of peer assessment, on how European aid performed fuelled the debate. His conclusions in praise of both the level of funding and the reforms undertaken, under the guidance of the European Commission, in order to increase effectiveness, did not prevent criticism.
Although all efforts by the Commission were praised for increasing aid efficiency through the European consensus on development and the elaboration of a code of conduct (guarantee for improvement in sharing work between member states and the Commission), a lot of criticism was made of the slow progress accomplished. The lack of responsiveness from member states, in no hurry to provide a concrete content to the proclaimed target of increased coordination, and the red tape in European Commission procedures in force for releasing aid, were criticised.
Commissioner Louis Michel said that he also supported the DAC appeal to the Commission and member states to better explain their respective roles and guarantee strategic exploitation of their comparative advantages. In reply to Luisa Morgantini (GUE/NGL, Italy), who made a heart-felt appeal for a simplification in procedures and the creation of a work group on the subject, said that decentralisation was not always very efficient and that the slow pace of the project was dramatic. Louis Michel also took this line, declaring, “the very first reform to make together will be the budget of the EDF”, which would help transparency, control and an annual assessment of European Parliament spending. The Commissioner added, “the EDF committee and its procedures are unbearable. They do not allow for democratic control or political responsiveness. You're telling me about bad coordination. I decry it with you too”. He said that he could not on his own prevent the multiplication and overlapping of interventions occurring in the same country. He mentioned Tanzania, which in the health sector alone, accounted for 600 development projects funded by 20 donors, with different legislation. Ana Mari Gomes (PES, Portugal), said that there appeared to be a lack of coordination between Commission delegation in developing countries and Brussels, “this is particularly true for Afghanistan where the delegation had no idea about the strategy document”, she added.
Louis Michel said that Mr Deva, who had asked whether the EU could put more stress on the output of European aid rather than the financial input, was right. He observed, however, that if major obstacles were encountered such as the impossibility or lack of suitable resources from the Commission, statistics would just boil down to finance routes constructed with the Commission, an area where the Commission, provides a masterly example of added value. Without talking about the wait and see attitude of member states who delay in providing information about projects they fund and the countries they do this in (the Commissioner said that it really was a tough call getting information in this respect). This data is, however, essential for establishing the atlas of donors proposed by the Commission as a tool for better division of labour.
The Commissioner recognised that this optimal distribution of tasks had become an objective that he was obsessed with. He did say, nonetheless, that he was confident about it and were making progress and that proof that of this was that around “ten ACP countries had common programming”. (an)