Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-17-Speech-4-104"
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"en.20020117.5.4-104"2
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"My group supports the recommendation on the ACP/EC Partnership Agreement. We welcome the fact that the EU's relations with the ACP States have, in the meantime, achieved a high level. New areas of cooperation have been opened up by means of direct commercial exchanges under the Cotonou Agreement. This makes it all the more disconcerting that only two of the Fifteen EU States have ratified this Agreement.
Political experience tells us that it is hard to put a broken thread of conversation together again. Cuba should not be excluded from the ACP process, but constructively involved in its further development through dialogue.
There is no doubt that the Agreement represents an improvement on its predecessors, because it takes the interests of the ACP States into account to a greater degree, yet we are not dealing here with real parity and equal treatment. It is dishonest of the EU, on the one hand, to demand of the ACP States efforts to develop a self-supporting economy, whilst at the same time using export subsidies to stifle early attempts at doing so.
Nor, politically, are the ACP States granted the power of co-decision that is their due. The poorest countries, which need the most support and for which thoroughly worked-out approaches to cooperation and development policy are a necessity, have few if any opportunities to take part in the parliamentary assemblies of the EU and of the ACP States.
I see it as particularly regrettable that the EU still has a split – not to say distorted – relationship with Cuba, a Caribbean state in relation to which it lets itself be guided more by American interests than by its own.
The Belgian Presidency was keen to break the ice in relations with Cuba and to open up channels for dialogue. In doing this, it worked on the basis of three important considerations:
1. The EU and its Member States must pay closer attention to the situation in Cuba and take note of the facts in an unprejudiced way;
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must acknowledge the political, parliamentary and socio-economic differences and mutually accept them in a particular way;
3. We must not go down the road of making excessive demands of each other. Certain demands are being made of Cuba that are not being met in a number of EU States.
When Mr Aznar presented the programme for the Spanish Presidency, I regretted the lack of any clear commitment to continue dialogue towards the objective of concluding a partnership agreement between the EU and Cuba, if at all possible before this year is out. I am concerned that the modest progress we have achieved may be brought to nought. Mr Dalmas, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba, with whom representatives of my group had talks in December last year, clearly expressed his country's hopes for a continued and more intensive dialogue with the EU, and its willingness to engage in it."@en1
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