Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-20-Speech-3-062"
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"en.20021120.1.3-062"2
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". – Mr President, I should like to respond to the more specific questions raised by Mrs Frassoni and Mr van den Burg. To Mrs Frassoni, who talked about the outcome of the Johannesburg Summit, I will start by saying that the Commission in many ways shares the worries about the softness of some of the decisions taken there but this has been duly commented on.
As regards the question of the relationship between international agreements on the environment and the WTO framework, in Johannesburg it was a non-event and nothing new happened: nothing was added to WTO, nothing was subtracted. Johannesburg was an attempt for the two sides to see if that balance could be changed – and it was not changed. For that reason not everyone was happy, but there is a limit to the unhappiness.
The second question from Mrs Frassoni concerned the category II initiatives which are too weak and unclear. I agree that the risk is that these weak initiatives do not add up to anything substantial. The hard core of follow-up actions for the European Union to Johannesburg will be our water and energy initiatives. These are not going to be weak or unclear. They are already on the agenda for the spring European Council and we are already engaged with the Member States in clarifying these initiatives, which we see as big and important.
I agree with Mr van den Burg that we need more rapid disbursement, especially regarding activities covered by the EDF. Things are moving forward and are somewhat better than they used to be, but we still have unsolved problems concerning staff and structure. This is an ongoing battle.
We are preparing to do bigger things in the HIPIC global health fund, education for all. All this depends on starting up the 9th EDF and I would urge Mr van den Burg when he returns to the Netherlands to make sure that the last remaining country in the convoy takes the necessary action, so that we are ready to access 9th EDF money.
As regards the agricultural profile of Europe in these global negotiations, this is back on track. We managed in Johannesburg and we are still managing to keep alive the formulations embedded in the Doha language on this front. We still see the external actions there as part of the necessary process of adaptation, which we in Europe have to take seriously. This language is continually being confirmed at all the meetings. Yesterday in the General Affairs and External Relations Council this was again the case. We are on track."@en1
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