Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-11-Speech-2-275"
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Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to be able to report to you on the results of the Lisbon Summit. There is not much more to add since I feel that the President-in-Office of the Council has described the results splendidly. I also wish to congratulate the Portuguese Presidency for arranging and organising this summit – as I feel it was urgently needed – and especially for its great success.
Thirdly, I also wish to remind you that the Member States committed themselves at Gleneagles to finding one billion euros per year for Aid for Trade, half of which must be paid over to Africa. These are public political commitments. I wish to remind you of this because these are components that will consolidate the feasibility and achievement of the strategic plans.
I have another thought on this subject: it is now clear that the commitment of the Commission and the Member States must not be the monopoly of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs or of the Ministers for Development. I would like us to institutionalise the principle of joint and regular sectoral ministerial meetings on these issues. Obviously sectoral ministers, for example in the areas of scientific research, trade, agriculture and finance can make an enormous contribution to the new relationship with African countries.
As I explained at the conference of the European and Pan-African Parliaments in Lisbon, we are also relying heavily on the European Parliament and the African and European national parliaments to gather and relay the opinions and expectations of civil societies. The central place given over to democratic actors and African and European civil societies at the very heart of the strategic partnership and its implementation is also an innovative feature which I hope will produce a genuine partnership focusing on people. The speeches by the Presidents of the European and Pan-African Parliaments to the Heads of State and Government marked the official implementation.
I also wish to tell you that I took due note of the request by your colleagues in the Pan-African Parliament for financial support for this institution with respect for its autonomy. We are obviously willing to consider, with the budgetary authorities, more direct access to finance. I reiterate to you my hope that one day we may include the European Development Fund in the budget, for I think it is right and fair for you to perform your function of democratic control over the process of allocating public development funds.
Ladies and gentlemen, before the summit I said that the main challenge there would be to strike the right note on this EU-Africa political partnership and send out a clear message of a complex-free, joint and pragmatic relationship. I think this is precisely the message emerging from the Lisbon Summit. As the Portuguese Prime Minister José Socrates said, I have the feeling there will be a before-Lisbon and an after-Lisbon in relations between the EU and Africa.
The summit evidently brought home a new and clear message: that of a radical change in relations between Africa and Europe. The Lisbon Summit marked the adoption, as has already been said, of a new common vision within a joint strategy, a political partnership of equals – complex-free, liberated and pragmatic – and a mutual responsibility. Having said that, the summit also adopted eight strategic plans to specifically implement this new vision.
The summit featured intense, rich, high-quality debates pointing to the new nature of our relationship, and thus its genuinely and essentially political nature. Yes, we discussed Zimbabwe, and many new European leaders, such as President Barroso and Chancellor Merkel, made it clear that Mr Mugabe’s policy is totally unacceptable, that we cannot tolerate violations of human rights, and that the policy operated there damages the desires for reform on the African continent. Many African leaders share these criticisms, and I feel the EU ought to lend its full support to African mediation under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and led by President Mbeki.
Yes, we talked about Darfur and the unacceptable humanitarian and security situation, and we criticised the uncooperative attitude of the Sudanese Government. At a troika meeting with the President of Sudan, we clearly set out our expectations and demands for him to take the decision to permit rapid deployment of the hybrid force in order to put an end, as soon as possible, to the violence we know is being committed there. It should be noted that, as a general rule, democracy, governance and human rights are no longer taboo, and many African countries have embarked on the road to progress, as they say, not in response to Europe’s expectations, but in response to the expectations of their own people.
Yes, we also talked about economic partnership agreements (EPAs), and yes, agreements were reached with many African leaders. President Barroso and I explained time and again the real issues behind EPAs. We also explained that the real challenge in the short term is to draw up interim agreements, not EPAs, before 1 January to ensure compatibility with WTO rules and thus prevent non-least-developed countries (non-LDCs) from being left in a more unfavourable situation as of 1 January 2008. I was told about the example of the Côte d’Ivoire which would have lost around 750 million euros in commodities trade if it had not drawn up the interim agreement. President Barroso suggested that next year the EPA discussions should be held at the highest level with each of the regions concerned, to finalise the agreements with a view to reasonable economic integration.
These are, of course, difficult issues. We brought them up with no fear of divergence. I feel that this will obviously give our new partnership quality and depth but, ladies and gentlemen, as of tomorrow we will face the even greater challenge of transforming this new political vision into specific action. It is our political duty to present specific results by 2010, in other words when we meet up again for the Third EU-Africa Summit. We have a collective obligation to produce results.
The joint strategy and the first action plan form the roadmap for our partnership and divide it into very specific, operational, thematic objectives, as the President said. These two joint documents adopted at the summit were unanimously welcomed in view of their quality and their ambitious nature. This success is the result of a very long period of preparatory work which began in December 2005 with a communication by the Commission on a strategy for Africa, which in 2007 became the EU-Africa joint strategy.
The European Commission fully intends to assume its responsibilities during the implementation phase. Success, however, is not only the responsibility of the Commission. The Member States and our African partners must ensure that their mechanisms are in full working order. One of Europe’s major responsibilities in implementing this partnership will consist of mobilising funds for finance. I wish to remind you that the Member States undertook to disburse an additional 20 billion euros per year by 2010. The latest results show we are on the right track but that, if we take account of the effect of debt cancellation in certain countries, the current good results are quite relative.
Secondly, one very important aspect is a better distribution of the work between donors. This is why the Code of Conduct on Division of Labour is a vital component."@en1
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