Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-012"
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". – Mr President, some may find it unrealistic to speak about the Barcelona Process when the Middle East is in flames – and that view is not entirely unfounded. Yet as Minister Piqué said, it confirms, at once the need for the Barcelona enterprise, and its resilience. The fact that we were able to hold the meeting in Valencia in the present circumstances has been a tribute not only to the vision that took shape in Barcelona in 1995, but also to the remarkable work of the Spanish Presidency.
I should like to turn now to the situation in the Middle East, which overshadowed our meeting in Valencia. European public opinion has been profoundly shocked by the unfolding tragedy. I have utterly condemned suicide bombings and terrorist acts, and I do it here again without any qualification whatsoever. Encouraging children or young people to strap dynamite to themselves and to set out to kill others while killing themselves is deeply wicked. And failure to discourage this is quite simply inexcusable.
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I have also been deeply disturbed, however, by the reports coming out of the West Bank of the behaviour of the Israeli Defence Forces. There are reports, which must be thoroughly investigated, that they have sometimes shown – I am picking my words extremely diplomatically – a disregard for civilian life, and they have certainly disregarded UN and International Committee of the Red Cross appeals to be allowed to carry out their humanitarian duties. Israel, as a democratic country, as a pluralist society which believes in the rule of law, should meet international standards of behaviour without equivocation and without 'ifs' or 'buts'. That is what it means to be a democratic society; that is what the rule of law means.
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I want to make four points:
First of all, Full Withdrawal: We regret that the Powell mission did not yield immediate results in terms either of a ceasefire or of an immediate withdrawal. I recognise, however, the huge commitment that Secretary Powell put into the mission and that the mission was perhaps rather more successful than some critics have suggested. I continue to be concerned about reactions in the Arab world in the face of this stalled situation. I repeat my strong support for the UN-led fact-finding mission to Jenin. It would not be in Israel's interest to leave unanswered the allegations which have been made. We want to see the mission make effective and rapid progress and we call for active cooperation from all the parties involved.
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Everybody who knows Mr Ahtisari and the other members of the mission, will know of their total integrity and I hope that there will not be any doubts cast on that, as doubts have been cast on the role performed by Mr Larsen who is a great international public servant.
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Secondly, Full Access: With regard to the humanitarian situation there must be full and unhindered access to the affected areas, particularly refugee camps, to provide urgently-needed relief ...
Let us focus just for a moment on the achievements of Valencia: firstly, agreement on an excellent action plan to show the way forward for the coming months; secondly, the signing of the Association Agreement with Algeria bringing us very close to the completion of the grid of Agreements – we have now negotiated 11 out of 12. I hope Syria will be ready to return to real negotiations soon, and that the EU Member States will speed up the ratification of the Agreements that have been signed so far. Frankly it is slightly embarrassing when we express to our colleagues in the south of the Mediterranean, our enthusiasm for completing negotiation on these agreements and then it takes months or years to ratify them. I hope that we can have a little more parliamentary dynamism on behalf of the Member States.
Much remains to be done. The prosperity gap between the north and south of the Mediterranean is not diminishing. 40 million new jobs need to be created in the coming decade just to keep employment levels where they are now. Economic reforms will help achieve the growth and investment needed for this purpose, and the gradual creation of a true EuroMed internal market will create many new opportunities. This is what the economic pillar of the Barcelona Process is all about. There is also a broader point. Failure to close the gap in living standards, failure to increase growth and to alleviate poverty to the south of the Mediterranean is bound to nurture extremism there. It will also nurture extremism in Europe: the sort of extremism of which we have only recently witnessed such a grubby and shameful manifestation.
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To achieve these goals, we need to deepen the South-South relationship. There was good news at Valencia from the four countries involved in the Agadir Process that an agreement between them should be signed very soon. We also need to overcome non-tariff obstacles to trade and integration. The Valencia meeting endorsed decisions taken by Trade Ministers at Toledo on extending the pan-European origin system to the Mediterranean partners, on setting up a Working Group on regional integration, and on liberalising trade in services.
We also agreed to step up our financial cooperation. Some progress has already been made but I am anxious to make a good deal more. The ratio of payments to commitments in the MEDA programme improved from 26% for the 1995-1999 period, to 37.6 % in 2000 and to 53.1% in 2001. So, we have reached about twice the figure we had in the second half of the 1990's but we have to do better still. Last December we adopted new country and regional strategy programmes for the years 2002 to 2004 which provide a more focused and stable framework for our financial cooperation. In this context I also welcome the agreement to create a reinforced EIB lending facility for the region and congratulate the Council Presidency on the great leadership they have shown in that area, which should enable us to get more help to the private sector in the countries to the south of the Mediterranean.
On the third chapter of Barcelona, we reached agreement on a programme of cooperation on justice, on the fight against drugs, on organised crime and terrorism, and on co-operation on issues relating to migration. That was a significant success because these are all difficult and sensitive issues.
Finally, in Valencia, we discussed the dialogue of cultures and civilisations. As you know the Commission has taken a number of initiatives in this area, including a proposal to create a Euro-Med Foundation. Unfortunately we met some reluctance among the Member States to make the EUR 1 million contributions we requested from each of them. I have heard huge enthusiasm from all quarters for deepening the dialogue between cultures, but apparently, for some people, EUR 1 million is too high a price to pay at the moment. There is agreement in principle on this issue, which I welcome, but the Member States must make this modest financial commitment if the Foundation is to get off the ground.
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