Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-04-Speech-3-257"
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"en.20020904.7.3-257"2
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". – Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Stenzel on behalf of the Commission for her report on the European Agency for Reconstruction. It is a thorough and thought-provoking report which raises important questions. My colleague, Mr Patten, discussed it with some of you at the meeting in Strasbourg on 2 July and circulated an information note in June which I hope covered many of the concerns of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
In the report you emphasise the need for coordination. We share this view. It is an absolute necessity to ensure that our assistance brings the highest added value possible. We are therefore pleased to note the systematic and extensive coordination already taking place between Commission services and between actors on the ground.
From previous debates, I know that you want to discuss the broader issue of the future of assistance to the western Balkans and its organisational aspects, including the competences of the European Community delegations and the agency. Our preliminary thoughts are as follows.
There is no reason to assume that the coexistence of the agency and the Commission delegation in the same country leads to an overlap. The political role and the status of all delegations in the region are identical, beyond assistance implementation. They are focused on developing the political and institutional relationship with the European Union. As each country moves further into the stabilisation and association process, we will have to evaluate whether support for the process of bringing the countries up to European standards needs to be completely integrated with the political work of the delegations. This question will be at the heart of the decision on the future of the agency. But we cannot give a clear answer at this point. Above all, we do not believe it will be to the region's benefit to dismantle recently established arrangements which are working well. Administrative and institutional tidiness must not impede our primary objective of achieving real change on the ground. However, we clearly need to keep our options open and be ready to change how we deliver aid, when there are clear benefits in doing so.
The Commission will ensure that these decisions are taken on the basis of what is most effective in achieving the four objectives: more focus on quality, speedier implementation according to the highest standards of management, visibility, and above all the impact of our programmes on the ground. Parliament's views will be invaluable in developing the arrangements that best suit the needs of the region and the strategic ambition for its closer integration into the European Union.
Mr Patten has promised to present a report outlining the future implementation of assistance before the end of 2003. This will form the basis of the recommendations which the Commission is required to submit by 30 June 2004 under the European Agency for Reconstruction regulation.
Today I will outline some preliminary thoughts, but first allow me a few comments on some specific points in the report. I am pleased that the report so clearly acknowledges the efficiency and high delivery capacity of the European Agency for Reconstruction. The agency is indeed a success story. It is doing an extraordinary job in channelling Community assistance to the former Republic of Yugoslavia and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In this context, I would also like to highlight the success of the deconcentration to Commission delegations. This has, for example, been a major factor in the successful implementation of the European Community assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Commission endorses many of the observations in the report. We strongly agree, for example, with Parliament's suggestion that we need to focus increasingly on institution and capacity building. That is certainly our approach. A large percentage of the overall assistance is allocated to institution building and it is increasing all the time.
The country strategy papers and the multiannual indicative programmes allow for some flexibility and do not need to be revised for these transitions. Mr Swoboda mentioned the issue of illegal immigration and the Balkan routes and we have made it very clear that we need a regional approach to fight illegal immigration and organised crime in south-east Europe.
Under the Swedish presidency we organised the first meeting of the five countries in the region, because without regional cooperation we will not succeed. Some Member States have developed a liaison officers' network and we have been cooperating with border guards and police forces in the region and that has definitely improved the situation although it is still far from resolved.
The shift I have mentioned above applies to the countries with deconcentrated delegations, as well as those where the agency is operating. There is no reason to think that the agency will handle institution-building programmes any less successfully than it has physical reconstruction.
The legal base for the agency is perfectly adequate and does not need to be amended. Nor do we want to change its successful brand name, even if the focus is no longer principally reconstruction.
The report suggests that if the territorial competence of the agency were to be extended its regulations should be modified. The decision to extend the agency's mandate to the whole of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was taken because of exceptional circumstances. We do not see a need to extend the agency's territorial competence further."@en1
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