Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-381"
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"en.20020313.16.3-381"2
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". – Mr President, I wish to start by sincerely thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Carrilho for her work on this proposal and especially for the efforts she has made to conclude the legislative process at the first reading.
The objective of our proposal was simply to extend the legal basis for the decentralised cooperation budget line for an additional period of two years. This will ensure the continuity of the budget line and give time for a thorough discussion with all the partners concerned on the role the budget line should play in the strengthening of local actors in the South. In his speech, Mr Rod suggested that we have not been engaging in proper consultation, but the fact is that by doing what we are doing, we are, in fact, ensuring that consultation takes place. The outcome of this discussion should then provide the basis for a revision of the strategic guidelines for the decentralised cooperation instrument.
I understand Parliament's concern that the various instruments to strengthen local actors should be integrated into a coherent strategy on the involvement of civil society in the South in development cooperation. I agree that there is a need to have a debate on this. A communication on a strategy to support civil society in developing countries is planned for the second half of this year. As has been mentioned, we had promised this communication earlier, but we started out on too narrow a basis, which did not offer a global perspective. And has been said here, we have systems which vary quite a lot among the ACP countries and the rest of our partner countries. We expect the debate on civil society involvement to feed into the discussion on the continued promotion of decentralised cooperation and the future of a specific budget line in this area. I would like to make one more comment on this: the support we can give to NGOs and non-governmental actors in the future in ACP countries is something that goes far beyond the power and potential of this budget line. For countries outside the ACP, the situation is different and much more dependent on the individual strategy that we agree with each country. This does not rule out the possibility of similar action if it is agreed with the partner country.
Furthermore, there is broad agreement on the benefit of urging European NGOs to work in partnership in the South. This was, in fact, the main idea behind this special cofinancing budget line. In a sense, this budget line could be deemed a phenomenal success because we have brought it into the ACP philosophy and we are now also urging NGOs in general to engage directly with partners in the South. This is the background against which we think it useful to have a broader and more open discussion about the virtues of a specific budget line for this item, but my own decision is that we need a broad, open discussion and should give ourselves enough time to allow everybody to participate in the discussion. This is exactly what is being made possible by the report we are discussing at present.
The proposed amendments are mainly intended to ensure compliance with the latest comitology procedures and coherence with other recently adopted regulations in the area of development cooperation. They also clarify the eligibility of some civil society actors.
The Commission is happy to agree with all these amendments. They reflect well the fruitful discussions between the rapporteur, the Council working group and the Commission services.
I hope that the Council will also agree to all Parliament's amendments and that the regulation can thus be adopted as soon as possible in terms reflecting this first reading."@en1
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