Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-10-20-Speech-2-372"
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"Madam President, honourable Members, in the EU consensus on development, the term ‘poverty’ is defined with a number of dimensions. Poverty means an absence of power, opportunities and security. Development is impeded if there is no freedom, and freedom is restricted without democracy. It is difficult to have peace without democracy. Consequently, there can be no development without peace. Both require full respect for human rights. These concepts are intertwined and we need a coherent overall framework for better use of existing policies and instruments in support of democracy building.
Where are we now? The relevant working groups have initiated discussions on proposals for the Council’s conclusions, based on various contributions. We are building on the work started by the Czech Presidency, which held a special conference on the EU and democracy building.
I have also seen a very interesting report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance that compares our intentions when carrying out democracy building with how they are perceived by our partners.
It is too early to assess the initiative, but I want to emphasise that the process is already providing added value. Those responsible for development and human rights issues are working together more closely. Discussions in the Council working groups on development and human rights are taking place in parallel or at joint meetings. That alone is an added value and an important point of the whole initiative. We are working towards the Council’s conclusions being adopted at the General Affairs and External Relations Council in November.
One of the proposals being discussed is the need for country-specific approaches that are based on an in-depth analysis of a country’s situation and that feed into democracy building at EU level, affecting the choice of appropriate instrument.
Another proposal is the need for real partnership, based on dialogue and consultations, in which support for democracy is treated as a separate topic and in which various dialogues are more coherent and coordinated.
The EU’s support for election processes around the world is important. The Council and the European Parliament are largely of the same view concerning this. We share the concern that Parliament sometimes feels as regards the need to ‘go beyond the elections’. Election support needs to be made part of a continual process that involves following political developments over a long period of time. This means we must focus on what is happening in the lead-up to elections, during elections and between elections in order to ensure there are functioning mechanisms for demanding responsibility.
I cannot emphasise enough the role of our various parliaments – in other words, the role of the European Parliament and the national parliaments – in the democracy building process. They must be fully involved in the EU’s activities.
I hope that the Treaty of Lisbon will enter into force in the near future. These new ‘rules of the game’ for the Union will bring about a more democratic and effective EU. The Treaty will also help make Europe a stronger player on the global stage by establishing the European External Action Service. The idea behind this is, after all, to make the EU’s external policies more concordant and to bridge the gap between the Commission’s and the Council’s work so that the policies are moving in the same direction. Along with the European External Action Service, the political framework for supporting democracy building will improve so that the EU can provide even better support for developments in various places in the world.
EU support for democracy building is incredibly important. If a democratic state cannot meet its citizens’ basic needs and stimulate economic and social development, this will result in dissatisfaction with how democracy works. The government then risks losing both legitimacy and political support.
I would like to thank the Members of the European Parliament for pushing this issue. You contribute through your commitment, through legislation, through your relations and contacts with parliaments around the world and through your participation in the EU’s election observation missions. For this reason, you are a key force in democracy building, and I hope that the European Parliament will continue to perform this role for a long time to come.
I would like to thank the European Parliament for its great interest in and support for this work. After seven years as a Member, including on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I am only too aware of Parliament’s wholehearted commitment and real contributions to democracy building within the context of the EU’s external relations.
This initiative, which was launched by the Czech and Swedish Presidencies, has been discussed here previously on a number of occasions, including with my colleague, Mrs Carlsson.
The starting point of the initiative is that democracy building is a key factor not only in the EU’s development cooperation, but also in the Common Foreign and Security Policy. That is undisputed. However, the intention is for the initiative to go one step further. As a global player, with 27 Member States and the European Parliament, and as the world’s largest contributor of aid, the EU has a key role to play in terms of supporting democracy building in its external relations. There is a symbolic dimension to this, since we hope that our successes at home will serve to inspire our partner countries around the world. However, it is also intended that the initiative will work at a pragmatic and operational level. The aim is to ensure that we fully utilise the instruments at our disposal within the EU’s legal and political frameworks and our institutions in a coordinated, effective way.
We are not starting from scratch. We have already achieved a great deal. We are experienced in supporting democracy building in our external relations. This is a priority area in our relationships with ACP countries – written into the Cotonou Agreement – and with other regions such as Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. We have strong rules on human rights that include dialogue with third countries and seven common EU strategies.
Certainly, there is substantial room for improvement, however. We can do more. We can do better. The essence of democracy demands a new political framework, and the current distribution of labour between the various pillars does not necessarily correspond to the needs that exist. Various instruments are used in parallel, and sometimes not very consistently. This is undermining the impact of what we are doing. It may also affect our visibility and credibility and limit our opportunities for effective cooperation. Without therefore inventing new tools or models, we quite simply want to bring about greater coordination and coherence in the way we work on supporting democracy.
How can we do this? Well, by identifying specific ways of using the EU’s instruments more effectively within a uniform framework.
We can draw inspiration from some of our success stories. Our involvement in the Western Balkans is one such example. It combines first and third pillar instruments and is, at the same time, oriented towards supporting political reforms, including institution building. That is why it is becoming a stable environment for democracy. The ‘two hats’ that the EU’s special representative has help to bring about better coordination and coherence between the EU’s various instruments. We must be humble, however. We face substantial challenges in the region.
I want to make myself clear. Some people – perhaps not those of you here – are concerned that this initiative will introduce new conditionality into development aid. Naturally, this is a sensitive issue. However, talking about human rights and democracy with our partner countries can never embody conditionality."@en1
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