Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-245"
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"en.20071128.23.3-245"2
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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present this report to you today on the allocation of macro-financial assistance (MFA) to Lebanon. This is testimony to the EU pledge to help the country recover from successive crises.
It is precisely because Lebanon is a developing country that Parliament insists on not neglecting the social aspect of the reforms that the Lebanese Government might undertake. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), nearly 24% of Lebanese live in complete destitution, and 52% of Lebanese are considered underprivileged. Moreover, nearly 9% of the population are illiterate, less than one-third of the population reach primary school level, and only 13% of Lebanese reach university.
Despite this reality, it must be said that the social question is not currently at the centre of Lebanese political debate, and the social content of envisaged reform is extremely limited with respect to economic and financial concerns. It is, however, in the interests of Lebanon and its partners, as I have already said, to find a fair balance between the various items of expenditure, particularly funds for education and training. It must be borne in mind that persistent social inequalities may have serious economic and political consequences which could prolong the country’s instability.
Lebanon is currently one of the world’s most debt-ridden countries, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 180%. The impact of the civil war between 1975 and 1990, the 2006 summer crisis with Israel, chronic political instability and an economic policy set adrift have caused a serious economic, financial and social crisis. The reality of this situation calls for urgent action to be taken.
It transpires that funds in connection with the adoption in January 2007 of the EU-Lebanon Action Plan as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy will not be available until 2009. The exceptional MFA we are set to adopt will bridge that gap and will have an immediate impact on public finances and the balance of payments in Lebanon, provided it is implemented immediately. The MFA will consist of a donation of 30 million euros and a loan of 50 million euros to help the Lebanese Government take on post-war reconstruction and continue its economic revival.
My report fully approves the need to secure this financial assistance for Lebanon. It does, however, introduce a number of amendments to the Council’s proposal for the sake of clarity and transparency.
First and foremost, we ought to bear in mind that the assistance must be strictly complementary to the finance agreed by the Bretton Woods institutions, the Paris Club, bilateral donors and the EU under other programmes. It must be coherent with EU external action or policies and guarantee the added value of the Community undertaking.
The Council will also need to explicitly and publicly take up Parliament’s recommendations as to the conditions and criteria attached to the assistance, in other words improved transparency and increased sustainability of public finances, application of the budgetary and macro-economic priorities defined, implementation of specific measures to prevent any risk of fraud, corruption and misuse of funds, distribution of assistance with a fair balance among post-conflict expenditure, reconstruction, excessive debt and the social needs of the population, and full compliance with international democratic and human rights standards and the fundamental principles of the rule of law. Provision of aid for Lebanon must be accompanied by real progress on the objectives mentioned, and this must be set out in a grant agreement drawn up jointly with the Lebanese authorities.
In addition to our basic work on this text, I also wish to mention some of the difficulties encountered while the report was being drawn up, given its urgent nature. It is for this reason that, for any future decision relating to the granting of MFA, the Commission and the Council must provide us with much more notice. For Parliament to carry out its work satisfactorily, it must have better-quality information in good time. In this regard, implementation of an early warning system by the Commission would ensure faster handling of the dossier by the competent committee in Parliament and avoid unnecessary delays which might have a serious negative impact on the final beneficiary of the financial aid. The quality and coherence of our work and the quality of our cooperation with the other institutions rely heavily on this factor.
In line with previous Parliament resolutions, I wish to stress that such a substantial instrument cannot be simply regarded as exceptional. It must have a regular legal basis and cannot be based on
Council decisions for each operation. A framework regulation on MFA, laid down under the codecision procedure, is necessary in order to enhance transparency, accountability, monitoring and reporting systems.
We must also make rapid arrangements for interinstitutional discussions as to the most suitable legal basis for this kind of instrument. In the case of MFA for Lebanon, one of the countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy and also classified as a developing country, we feel that the legal basis for this action should have been Article 179 of the EC Treaty instead of Article 308 of the EC Treaty."@en1
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