Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-24-Speech-4-102-000"
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"en.20120524.7.4-102-000"2
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"− Mr President, it was a key objective of the Commission’s proposal to make MFA a more timely and effective tool, while fully ensuring Parliament’s ownership and support. That was also clearly stated by Mr Kazak, whom I thank for the report. I should also like to thank the members of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) for their work.
We welcome this report, therefore, as a good basis for further discussions. I would like to focus the Commission’s initial feedback on three points which were also addressed by the rapporteur: the use of the delegated act procedure, the issue of political pre-conditions and, finally IMF conditionality.
The report proposes using the delegated act procedure – under Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – to adopt decisions for individual MFA programmes, by introducing an annex which would be amended for each decision. It also proposes that the memorandum of understanding for each programme should be adopted by the delegated act procedure. However, we believe that the Treaty is clear on this issue: the delegated act procedure is applicable only to non-legislative acts of general application, to supplement or amend non-essential elements of the legislative act.
From the Commission’s perspective, decisions on individual programmes and on memoranda of understanding would be classic cases of implementing the legislative act, not supplementing it. The Framework Regulation should establish which countries are eligible, and the conditions for providing MFA. These conditions should be implemented in a uniform way for all operations. Therefore, in accordance with Article 291 of the Treaty, the implementing powers for decisions concerning individual programmes and for the memoranda of understanding should be conferred on the Commission.
The report also proposes using the delegated act procedure for updating the list of eligible countries. For these exceptional cases, the use of the delegated act procedure could indeed be further explored.
Concerning political pre-conditions, the Commission supports the proposal to strengthen the assessment and monitoring of political pre-conditionality. Democratic mechanisms, the rule of law and respect for human rights are important pre-conditions for MFA, and a reference to this could indeed be further strengthened in the Regulation. However, the Commission would strongly argue against the definition of specific political measures in the area of human rights or democratic institutions as conditions for the disbursement of MFA tranches. This would turn a genuinely macroeconomic instrument into an essentially political instrument; this would be, in our view, contrary to the nature and the objectives of MFA.
The Commission would like to emphasise that economic governance is already an integral part of MFA. Issues such as corruption and transparency are regularly referred to in MFA conditionality.
Finally, on the issue of IMF conditionality, softening IMF conditionality as proposed by the report raises quite a number of concerns. The IMF is the main provider of macro-economic assistance to countries undergoing serious balance of payments difficulties. The IMF programme offers a framework for the adjustment process and, by definition, the IMF is the key institution for balance of payments support. It cannot be replaced by another European or multilateral financial institution, as no other institution provides this type of support. The fact that MFA is a complementary instrument by nature is also reflected in the size of the instrument. Giving up the connection to the exercise of an IMF programme would therefore not be advisable.
To conclude, MFA is important as a means of helping to stabilise countries close to the EU. However, decision-making procedures have become heavy and have slowed down the effectiveness of this tool. The Framework Regulation is truly a chance to sharpen it up and enable it to be used more efficiently. The Commission is eager to work closely with Parliament to achieve this goal."@en1
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