Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-282"
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"en.20040331.13.3-282"2
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"Mr President, my congratulations and thanks to the rapporteur. First of all, no-one here this evening should claim that budgetisation is a silver bullet for the ACP for the delivery of the EDF. However, at the outset we should say that budgetisation would mean that we would no longer stash away hundreds of millions of euro, as has happened under the EDF – money meant for countries which for various reasons were not efficient spenders. It is the case that we should not underestimate, as Mrs Sandbæk has said, the ACP's concerns, but it is wrong for Mrs Sandbæk to say that there is no dialogue on budgetisation. It is happening, the ACP are preparing documents and there is clear discussion going on.
For some of the issues that have been raised, guarantees must be offered that resource levels for the ACP will be maintained and increased, and that means a five-year financial framework has to be jointly agreed with the ACP. We can fairly assume now that there is agreement between Parliament, the Commission and the ACP that there has to be ring-fencing over a five-year financial framework. The suggestion I made some time ago that we should have a sub-heading has not found favour. We might still choose to push that with the Commission, but certainly ring-fencing is something that is agreed.
I believe that as things stand the ACP can now hold its own in the budgets on the basis that it is by no means the worst-performing region that we deal with under external relations. It is quite condescending to presume or to suggest that the ACP could not manage that relationship under the budgets.
Concerns are raised about multiannual funding of projects. Currently under the budget the so-called sunset clause applies and there will undoubtedly be pressure on the ACP to complete over a three-year timescale. But I personally have no difficulty with a three-year timescale. Very often I have been more worried than I like to say about projects which have ceased to be effective, which needed to be terminated and closed down, so a three-year period is something that we can work with quite easily.
The ACP is concerned about how co-management will be effective and about the role of the NAOs. It seems to me that the main priority for the ACP is not just about how they maintain administration of ACP aid, but how they maintain ownership of their own priorities and their own development strategies. There should be no fundamental problem with the Commission delegation signing contracts – why should that be a problem, because that would certainly speed up the process? I have seen far too many NAOs drowning under tenders and contracts. Far better for them to have the wherewithal to deal with development priorities.
Finally, the principles of partnership are at the heart of the Cotonou Agreement. We want the ACP to be the centre of the dialogue and, as others have said, the Joint Parliamentary Assembly has an important role to play and assists us in focusing the Commission's mind on the views of the ACP and of ACP parliamentarians."@en1
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