Brussels, 11/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - On 11 November in Brussels, EU27 development ministers meeting at the Jumbo Council (general Affairs/External Relations/Development) reaffirmed in the unanimous conclusions on food safety, the firm determination of the EU to help developing countries suffering from the world food crisis, through short, medium and long term measures.
Welcoming the main lines of a collective response to this challenge, such as those outlined by the June 2008 European Council, the Council was delighted that the Commission had already made a commitment to allocating €800 million in 2008-09 through food aid, emergency aid and the redeployment of certain funding (particularly €200 million from the European Development Fund for ACP countries) and that member states voluntary contributions had increased the EU and World Food Programme (WFP) contribution to €700 million. The Council believes, however, that further immediate action should be taken to help the most vulnerable and those most affected, as well as to ensure that harvests over the next few years are given agricultural production support and the structural causes of the crisis are tackled in an effort to help sustainably relaunch subsistence farming and reduce developing countries' vulnerability with regard to food price volatility. The Council urges member states and the Commission to significantly increase the agricultural share of public and development aid.
Alain Joyandet, the French secretary of state for cooperation and development and French speaking countries was pleased with the consensus and announced that the French presidency would organise an international conference in Paris on 8-9 December, on the sustainable structural relaunch of subsistence farming in Africa in each sub-region in an effort to: draw up an inventory of the requirements in public equipment (dams, storage, means of communication, energy, setting up business networks) and establish “production by production and region by region, the objectives to be planned with economic leaders in the different sub-regions”.
Call for an agreement on billion promised - Commissioner Michel's anger
Asked by the press about the inability of the ministers of finance to agree on the €1bn proposed by the European Commission in an emergency rescue package for the 2008-09 harvests in the most hardest hit developing countries, Alain Joyandet indicated that the Development Council had not debated the, “financial arrangements that ought to enable implementation of this billion”. The president did, nonetheless, express his, “great hope that a technical solution will be found” next week during the budget concertation on 21 November. In its conclusions, the Council simply welcomes the work by the Council, Parliament and Commission to, “implement the orientations of the June 2008 European Council on the setting up of a new agricultural support facility in developing countries in respect of the current financial perspectives”. It also calls for the rapid conclusion of this work in order to, “define an ambitious European Union response to the food crisis before the end of 2008”.
Mr Joyandet indicated that, “the 27 member states were in favour, in principle. They now only needed to find the solution. On budget questions, use of CAP resources is complicated and it is necessary to work out whether funds will be mobilised in two or three years or whether a bit of flexibility should be included”. He conceded that discussions still needed to be finalised.
The Commissioner for development, Louis Michel, expressed his anger to journalists and accused member states of hiding behind budgetary subterfuge that had been blown out of proportion when time was running out if they were to find the urgent response needed. He exclaimed that “due to these delays, 2008 is a missed opportunity. The Commission's initial proposal was over two years (2008-09), for access to seed and fertiliser. It is now about saving the 2009-10 harvests. It is not going to be 2010-2011-2014 to get the member states to swallow the pill!” The Commissioner affirmed that there were not that many solutions and that they needed to fund the existing programme: WFP, FAO and IFAT, as well as the World Bank's programme, which explained why NGOs were not the privileged operations in the Commission's proposal. Louis Michel said that he was surprised that commitments taken at the highest level are, “threatened by the smallest semantic arguments and specious pretexts. We should stop saying we want to do something and finding a million and one reasons for not doing anything”. The solution for finding the billion, he said, was simple, “everyone makes a commitment to provide a discount in the usual budget process…it is a question of political determination”. (A.N./trans/rh)