Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-24-Speech-3-362"
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"en.20071024.40.3-362"2
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"Europe used to have a bad conscience over Africa due to its past colonial policies. Today we are trying to help the developing countries enter the globalised world. That is why the spotlight, in relation to these countries, has shifted to global challenges. Besides disease, starvation and drinking water shortages, these issues also include security, trade, migration, brain-drain and climate change.
Besides charity, our task is to oversee responsible decision-making based on democratic principles on the part of the African institutions. In this light I regard Commissioner Mandelson’s development strategy as hazardous as it focuses exclusively on trade relationships in the Pacific.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must insist that the Commission step up the capacity-building in the area of the human rights agenda. Without it democracy in Africa or for that matter in any other place in the world does not stand a chance. What troubles me is how deeply rooted the former communist block ideology is in Africa. What is also worrying is the growing influence of the totalitarian Chinese market model, which mines African raw materials and takes work away from the African people.
I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Martens, on the comprehensive and balanced definition of the new strategy as set out in her excellent report. We have to, however, also look to its financial framework and learn to read the outcomes from the appropriate indicators.
It also appears to me that the Commission does not sufficiently divulge to European citizens the importance of EU collaboration with its most immediate neighbour of Africa. I hope that the December summit in Lisbon will adopt, based also on this report, a new vision of relations rooted in the human rights agenda.
I would like to conclude by saying that the summit will be fundamental for a shift in EU-African relations, therefore I do not approve of the fact that the Czech Republic and the UK intend to block this pan-African summit because of the participation of the dictator from Zimbabwe. That said his presence ought to be categorically challenged and condemned."@en1
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