Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-17-Speech-5-053"
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"en.19991217.6.5-053"2
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"Mr President, the political tide in Tajikistan seems to be turning. Only last week, President Ragmanov called for parliamentary elections to be held next spring. After months of tug-of-war between the government and the opposition, agreement has finally been reached regarding the new electoral law. I should point out, however, that these developments mark only the beginning of the democratisation process. Tajikistan still shows features which are incompatible with a democratic constitutional state. Indeed, the downside of the present positive developments is that during the next elections, a number of parties will remain on the sidelines. They are excluded from participating. This is hardly surprising as permission to participate in elections is still in the hands of former communists. This remark regarding Tajikistan’s democratic status does not detract from the fact that quite a few changes have already taken place. As such, international organisations and bilateral donors no longer see good reason for suspending aid to Tajikistan. Even the European Commission, with the proposal it is making, seems to think it should put its oar in. However, the Commission is losing sight of one important factor. Earlier this year, the three institutions of the European Union concluded the interinstitutional agreement for a period of seven years, stipulating the financial ceilings for the various policy areas. I would like to remind the Commission of this.
In the proposal to grant aid to Tajikistan, this agreement is not given much consideration. Neither the urgent appeal by the IMF and World Bank to the European Union to increase aid to Tajikistan nor the argument of moral duty in the light of Tajikistan’s debts to the Union are in themselves good enough reasons to grant aid. We are first of all faced with the European Union’s financial limitations. The above agreement does not allow for making gifts to Tajikistan.
Moreover, we have recent experiences of entering into financial commitments which we cannot honour, as illustrated in the reconstruction of Kosovo. The Commission has pledged a sum of EUR 500 million while the Member States do not want to make the necessary increase in the European budget at this stage. A vague declaration of intent has since been drafted by the Council to prevent similar problems from occurring in future, but it remains to be seen what will come of this. Kosovo is no better off at the moment. Aid has been reduced to EUR 360 million and also spread over several years.
This incident has given me grave concerns regarding the Member States’ willingness to make concessions once again within the context of aid to Tajikistan, even if only relatively small amounts are involved. Member States find it hard to sell the idea within their own countries if the outcome of the negotiations at the Berlin Summit are undermined by reality. Apart from a limited budget, the European Union has little political interest in Tajikistan. The geographical remoteness makes it impossible to have any real influence on the democratisation process.
Although the European Union has an interest in being surrounded by large, stable regions, the tools it has available in order to achieve this are still very limited. All this does not mean that we cannot do anything at all for Tajikistan. On humanitarian grounds, I do agree with special aid as far as the loan component is concerned, but the gift component should be scrapped for the reasons I have outlined above.
I would also like to urge the Commission to ask Tajikistan’s bilateral donors and the Member States to grant special aid to this country on an individual basis. After all, the scope of the budget of the national Member States is, politically speaking, less of a sensitive issue.
Finally, I would like to strongly advise the Commission, out of moral considerations, to resume the projects under TACIS for Tajikistan as soon as possible. In this respect, we have to monitor the situation closely in order to ensure that the money ends up where it is needed, namely with the Tajikistani population, which is suffering under grinding poverty."@en1
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