Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-15-Speech-1-098"
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"en.20000515.6.1-098"2
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"Mr President, I am apparently not the only one who hangs her head in shame when it comes to South Africa. For years, we supported the fight against apartheid and welcomed the new South Africa with excitement. In 1995, it became our key partner in development cooperation. The fact that that country received most support from Europe was justified. After all, South Africa had to be – and still is – the driving force behind development in Southern and Central Africa. But it took too long for programmes to get underway and, when the date for the legal basis lapsed, we did not have a new regulation in place for our development cooperation. In his eminent report, the rapporteur emphatically referred to the expiry date of 31 December 1999.
The Council needed no fewer than eight months to determine its position. This was, of course, not down to fundamental differences of opinion, but, as many of the delegates have already hinted at here, because the development money was used as a means of exerting pressure to secure European trade interests and to exact a trade agreement, in which our much talked of alcoholic beverages had to be protected once again. We are deeply ashamed about such a state of affairs, which resembles a cattle market.
There is another reason to feel ashamed. A proportion of the money which we want to spend in the European countries to reconstruct Kosovo is being taken from the development cooperation with South Africa. Instead of increasing the funding by 1%, in line with inflation, and reaching the amount of EUR 885.5 million, as is also suggested by our rapporteur, we will be proposing a 10% reduction. I think this is disgraceful.
Eventually, Commissioner Schreyer proposed EUR 850 million, or 121 million annually, 5 million less to invest in the fight against poverty which we deem so important.
Mr President, Commissioner, we will naturally assent to the amendments tabled by the Committee on Cooperation and Development. Poverty is an injustice. We want the reconstruction of Kosovo. We are happy to finance it, but not with money intended to combat poverty. This is unethical.
We also support the second amendment. It may seem less important, but I think that the resources for the procedure should be retained. If we oblige our committee to address the individual programme points, there will be considerably less time and energy for tackling the efficiency of the programme as a whole. This is why we give our wholehearted support to the rapporteur."@en1
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