Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-285"
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"en.20030903.12.3-285"2
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".
There are many different aspects to the discussion on the role of non-state actors. One is that we deliberately played up expectations, especially in the ACP countries following the Cotonou Agreement, making an interesting breakthrough in giving them a role in the debate over country strategies and also starting a new activity of being able to fund the different non-state actors in these countries more directly. But these activities of NGOs and so on in our partner countries are not something we run or organise. It depends on the political situation, the level of democratisation, the character of the society. In some countries these things are very new. That is why the feedback of how successful this inclusiveness has been is somewhat mixed. We are pushing for it, but I cannot accept that the Commission can or should be made responsible for how successfully this can be done in another country. It is not our country. There is a limit to our powers.
I am quite optimistic. We have compared our attempts to the somewhat similar ones to broaden participation in the discussions in the poverty reduction strategy paper process, handled by the World Bank with the same countries in most cases. When we compare the achievement of involving civil society, we have had much more success.
This should not be seen as a civil society beauty contest between the Commission and the World Bank. It is of more interest that both urge the partner countries to do the same thing. The partner countries could then see that different partners in development work would actually like civil society in these countries to be more involved.
Civil society relations with NGOs in a European context are a somewhat different story. Mr Howitt wrote something in the explanatory statement that I disagree with. It is simply wrong. He says that the organisations themselves complain that any consultation they enjoy is entirely ad hoc and that the Commission can be accused of only consulting when it wants to legitimise its own perspective. I have checked whether the new umbrella organisation of development NGOs agrees with this description of the relationship. It does not. So what Mr Howitt has presented here is not what I have heard from the same NGOs. Of course both the NGOs and Mr Howitt could be wrong. I do not claim that one of them must be right.
In my view, today we are in a constructive phase of the discussions. My preference is to put the emphasis on an exchange of substance rather than formalising things between us. This is well understood. The hard-core of cooperation – the funding and administrative working relationship – is better than it has been for many years. It is possible to keep it that way. What is most interesting in terms of the funding aspect is that the NGO budget of EUR 200 million per year is only a small part of the total activity that we are funding through NGOs. The total amount of money per year going through NGOs is closer to EUR 1.5 billion – food aid, food security, part of the humanitarian aid for NGOs, and a great volume of project implementation work where we use different NGOs in the field. This should be given more attention. The EUR 200 million budget is so heavily in demand that we have an impossible situation if all of the discussion is concentrated there, especially in view of the ten new Member States that will join the EU. We should take care to provide good opportunities for NGOs in those countries to get in on the action. The EUR 200 million budget for NGOs should be looked at with a view to making sure that civil society in the new Member States does not feel marginalised because of stiff competition for that specific budget.
I look forward to continuing the discussion, not only with Parliament and Mr Howitt, but also with the NGO community."@en1
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