Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-25-Speech-3-049"
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"en.20020925.1.3-049"2
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". – Mr President, I shall start by carrying on exactly where Minister Haarder finished. The Commission is looking forward to this. As Mrs Hulthén pointed out at the beginning of the debate, we are also looking forward to coming back to Parliament in February to discuss how the follow-up is to be organised. All this is quite positive.
Please bear in mind that the meltdown in Seattle was due to an overload of the international agenda. If we had not cleared this up, and done what we did in Doha and Monterrey in order to allow the world to discuss sustainable development in Johannesburg, the whole thing would have been one big mess, damaging our attempts to tackle our problems with liberalising, and reducing subsidies for, agriculture. All that is now part of the Doha track. This would have been damaged if we had tried to 'redo' Doha in Johannesburg.
As far as the institutional debate is concerned, some people clearly find it a problem that I described the cold hard reality of institutional agreements. I noted Minister Haarder's remarks when he said that he could not promise any changes here today. Strangely enough this is exactly what I told Members of Parliament in Johannesburg. I could not undertake to depart from the institutional agreement. Nor should we regard this debate as simply a discussion between Members of Parliament and a Commissioner. Normally one says that it takes two to tango, but the institutional complexity of the European institutions is such that for us it takes three to tango.
It is therefore a mistake to think that this discussion is just between Parliament and the Commission. In fact if people look at what actually took place in Johannesburg, they will see that we did our utmost to try to inform parliamentarians. I would certainly have welcomed full participation by parliamentarians until the end of the summit. Unfortunately, however, after the weekend, very few stayed in Johannesburg until the end. The money spent on travelling there with nine assistants would have been far better spent if Parliament had allowed its representatives to stay throughout the international meetings rather than returning home in the middle. That would have strengthened cooperation.
I would say to Mrs Evans and Mrs McNally that an integrated approach to energy, gender, poverty, health and population – a point which was also very strongly made by Mrs Scheele – corresponds exactly with the kind of approach that is required. Mrs Evans stressed the importance of enforcing monitoring. The best method is to incorporate this into the country and regional strategies to secure ownership in the South. Considering what I said before about the lack of enthusiasm shown by many countries in the South to do these things, it is extremely important that we ensure that this is anchored in their own planning.
Mrs Scheele also asked how we are monitoring the financial commitments to development assistance levels made by Member States and the Union collectively in Monterrey. Fortunately, monitoring is already available via the reports which are made to the Development Assistance Committee in the OECD. This means that every donor country is obliged to submit information which the Commission will use to gain feedback. Discussions will be held on a regular basis to ensure that this increase is actually happening.
The discussion on reproductive health and rights dominated the last days of the summit. This is another reason why I would have welcomed the presence of Members of Parliament during that time. Article 47 of the political declaration was the result of a huge battle that was fought, day and night, before we finally managed, with the support of Canada, to get the established Cairo terms accepted. These were reintroduced into the text and we avoided a major defeat at the hands of the dark coalition of you-know-who. We ended up with something acceptable. This was an unwelcome drama. It is very disturbing to have to fight for something like this.
I have covered some of the aspects. Certainly, the enormous follow-up task is going to be a huge challenge. The water initiative – trying to organise regional cooperation in all the major African river systems – will be a huge project. We hope this will also feed into the general effort of trying to create more stable regional cooperation, which again will be good for democracy, stability and liberalisation of trade. So we see the water initiative there not only as an aim in itself but as something which is also very positive with regard to its indirect effects.
There is one new aspect that is very important: the water and energy initiatives are EU initiatives. We are moving into new terrain. It is not defined only by what the Commission does. This is a 'Monterrey-plus' landscape, because we are about to announce and launch global EU actions, which also makes it quite interesting.
I turn to the discussion on how we view this matter – whether with complacency, or pessimism, or optimism etc. From a literary point of view it is not totally correct to say that the emperor was naked. He was wearing some clothes, but only his night attire. So one would be justified in asking whether he was half-naked or half-dressed. There is no certain answer to this, just as there is no certain answer to how we should approach this area.
From the very start – even in Johannesburg when we were trying to respond to questions at press conferences – we tried to avoid using the terms 'success' or 'failure' because it was clear that this would never bring us and the people we talk with through the media close enough to something that was a professional and correct evaluation.
Again, in the course of the discussion we have tried to address the wilful pumping-up or the toning down of expectations before the meeting, which have been referred to as deliberate working methods. This makes a lot of sense, but the truth is that with global UN meetings like this we must calibrate expectations to fit in with reality. We are firmly in the realm of intergovernmental work. Comparing that with what we in Europe could do if we unite is, unfortunately, not fair. Everybody talks about the international society. We do not have one, we are trying to create one. That is where we are. I am pleading for professional realism as to how we evaluate these things.
On balance, whilst progress was made, we would have preferred to have made much more progress. However, to express dissatisfaction as Mr Turmes did when he said that we did not come back with the whole Christmas tree, complete with decorations, is an illustration of the fact that one has not allowed oneself the minimum of realism. That is the raw material that creates results.
I wonder whether a debate like this is taking place in any other political centre in the rich North. I doubt that the US Congress would devote a day to discussions, as we are, after Johannesburg. It would be nice if this happened, but let me remind you that it would be an error to think that it was only because of US attitudes and resistance to multilateral agreements that these were so difficult. It is a dangerous illusion to think that the whole G77 group is very enthusiastic about these different targets, or committing itself to a specific energy mix within a certain timeframe. This is not how it is in reality. The things we need to change cannot be changed easily.
Mr Moreira Da Silva said some very important things which characterise indicators of progress. They are more specifically action-oriented compared to Rio, but this is exactly what we should be doing with regard to Johannesburg. Secondly, Mrs McNally and others pointed out the closer and clearer link between the environment and poverty. It is extremely important to move closer to reality.
The balance between the issues of trade, development and the environment has been taken up by a number of speakers. We must remember that the basis on which we were able to work in Johannesburg was very clearly defined by decisions in the Council clarifying our mandate. In essence, Europe clearly wanted, and needed, to stick to the Doha formula. We could neither add nor subtract anything. This was the political basis on which we were able to negotiate in Johannesburg. Some may not like it, but it was a diplomatic achievement for Europe that we came back from Johannesburg with a formula that clearly reflected our words and left the Doha track open and clear, as it should be."@en1
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