Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-26-Speech-4-234"
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"en.20091126.22.4-234"2
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"Mr President, honourable colleagues, as you know, the European Union is engaged in a difficult dialogue with this country aimed at preserving democracy and restoring its citizens’ trust in the country’s democratic institutions.
At the same time, the EU is trying to maintain a balance with our long-standing commitment to support the development and stability of this developing country and the Central American region more generally.
Since the municipal elections held in November 2008, which were tainted with allegations of widespread fraud, international donors’ confidence in the current government has fallen to an all-time low. Failure to respect fundamental democratic principles, including free and fair elections, led the donor community to systematically review their cooperation portfolios and, in certain instances, reorient or suspend cooperation activities until conditions improved.
Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner took the decision to suspend all budgetary support payments to Nicaragua as of 1 January 2009. This decision had been preceded by a discussion with Member States in the Council.
Following numerous contacts with the Nicaraguan authorities which gave credible commitments that corrective steps would be taken, the Commission proceeded at the beginning of October with a single payment of EUR 10 million of our budget support programme to the education sector. This represents a small part of the funds that have been suspended, which amount to an additional EUR 46 million.
There was criticism last week in the Development Council that there were no previous discussions on this with the Member States. Without going into the details of this, I think it is very important that, when we take that kind of decision, we have a kind of a procedure whereby we at least try to make sure that the European Commission and the Member States are taking the same line with respect to individual states. If, in the end, it is not possible, then of course everybody is allowed to do what he or she thinks to be necessary.
The government of Nicaragua has announced that the next regional elections in 2010 and the general election in 2011 will have national and international observation teams. The government has already officially invited the EU to carry out an observation mission. The government has also committed
to improving its civil registry and electoral role with the support of an EC project and to appoint credible and professional electoral authorities next year.
On the other hand, recent developments, such as the ruling by the Constitutional Chamber, certainly cast a shadow on the seriousness of the Nicaraguan Government to live up to its commitments. The EU has, on a number of occasions, most recently by means of a local troika démarche on Monday 21 November, expressed concern on this development.
At the end of the day, implementation of these commitments will be crucial for the progressive resumption of our budgetary support programmes. We continue to work in close cooperation with the Member Sates as well as with the European Parliament, as this debate shows. Whether it is timely or not is, of course, a matter that should be looked at by Parliament itself."@en1
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