Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-17-Speech-3-166"
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"en.20000517.9.3-166"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that it has become quite clear today that the situation referred to in the question is of great concern and has attracted the Council’s attention. This is essentially an issue on which there is a degree of agreement, particularly within the European Union. The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union has furthermore taken care to include this issue in its working programme and has ensured that it was a key part of the agenda of the Cairo Euro-African summit. This issue must, however, be considered calmly and carefully, without any histrionics, given the serious situation that the populations of the highly indebted countries find themselves in.
The fundamental issue of debt is not the central issue for these countries – the main issue is their development, and this is the key point behind all this. We must all be aware that what is currently at stake is the global debate on general development policy and, in particular, on the role of the European Union and its Member States in defining this policy at world level. This is the crucial issue: debt is a symptom but underdevelopment is the disease. There are indeed problems of inequality and of the uneven distribution of wealth in these countries, but these problems must be overcome through political solutions.
I spoke just now about the temptation or tendency to adopt a neo-colonial approach, but I was by no means implying that some aid conditions – a subject which is in fact influenced by the current philosophy behind ACP-EU cooperation – are not perfectly legitimate and acceptable. What we must not forget is that there is a code of conduct for the internal management of resource allocation, and in particular for resources released for these countries as debt relief. We must be reasonably careful to find a way to respect the right of these countries’ governments to manage these funds. We must understand that we have to endeavour to ensure that political conditionality and the strengthening of democracy in these countries are the key factors underpinning our action. Working towards good governance and working towards strengthening democratic structures and political participation are vital factors in creating free societies which provide for better management of internal resources and more appropriate management of wealth distribution and, in particular, which do not encourage corruption and the siphoning-off of funds. It is our opinion that these issues are fundamentally linked to development. As I said, the issue of debt is a symptom of a much more global issue, namely development. I think that the European Union and the Member States have demonstrated that they are mindful of the problems in this field and that they have concrete measures to propose in order to address them."@en1
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