1. PRESIDENT OF EUROPEAN COMMISSION CHOSES NEW COMMISSIONERS – UNCLARITY OVER DEVELOPMENT AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS PORTFOLIO
Mr. Romano Prodi, the President-designate of the European Commission, last week unveiled the new team of European Commissioners he is proposing to the European Parliament (EP) for approval. He also announced a shake-up of the Commission’s departments aimed at making the Commission more effective in key areas such as external relations.
The proposed Commission includes five women, one of them is to be one of the two Vice-presidents of the Commission. Among the prospective Commissioners are: Mr Neil Kinnock (UK) - Vice President for Administrative Reform; Ms Loyola de Palacio (Spain) - Vice President for relations with the EP, Transport and Energy; Mr. Poul Nielson (Denmark) - Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Affairs; Mr. Chris Patten (UK) - Commissioner for External Relations (this includes common foreign and security policy, management of EU delegations in non-EU countries and the management of the Common Service for External Relations); Mr Pascal Lamy (France) - Commissioner for Trade; Mr Günter Verheugen (Germany) - Commissioner for the Enlargement of the EU. Mr Franz Fischler (Austria) is retained as Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries.
Among Mr Prodi’s proposed reforms for the Commission are to make the rules of senior appointments tighter and transparent; increase the internal mobility of senior Commission staff; abolish the roman numerals assigned to Commission departments in favour of short understandable names; and slim down the number of departments and group them more logically within single portfolios.
Prior to the announcement of the Commission, the Eurostep Secretariat had written to the Mr Prodi urging Mr Prodi to ensure that the approach taken towards the European Community’s external policies and actions reflect both their importance and the need for coherence between the different constituent elements. The letter called for a single Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Affairs, pointing out that the split of the external aspects of the EC’s programme into five portfolios had resulted in seemingly different policies being pursued by different parts of the Commission. This had contributed to inefficiencies in implementing the programme. The letter also urged Mr Prodi to ensure that the Commissioner assigned the responsibility of development co-operation is sufficiently senior (possibly a Vice-President) with experience that will enable him/her to manage the broad based programme of development co-operation and humanitarian affairs.
Following the Mr Prodi’s proposals, we have observed that there is still a lack of clarity on the content of the portfolios between the Commissioners for External Relations and Development. It is now unclear whether the Commissioner for Development will be responsible for all of the Community’s aid, i.e. ACP well as non-ACP (Latin America, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Asia).
It is also unclear why development issues have been split between two Commissioners. Poul Nielson as Development Commissioner will deal with policy, while Chris Patten charged with managing the Common Service for External Relations will be responsible for implementation of development policy.
According to the European press, the EP is almost certain to endorse Mr Prodi’s team, despite serious misgivings about its political and gender balance. 6 of the 20 Commissioners are from the centre right parties that dominated the EP elections.
2. ACP-EU MINISTERIAL NEGOTIATIONS
ACP and EU Civil servants in Brussels have decided on the issues they will put to the their ministers, who will be attending the forthcoming ACP-EU Ministerial Negotiations Meeting on 29-30 July, to resolve. These should form the basis of the agenda for the Ministerial Meeting.
The Civil servants participating in the Central Negotiating Group that deals with political and institutional issues are asking their ministers, inter alia, to address the following issues: 1) The inclusion of good governance as an essential element of the next framework agreement (EU position)along with the three existing ones (rule of law, democracy and human rights) 2) The scope of the non-execution clause. This is the clause that sets in motion measures that should be taken against parties that violate the essential elements (ACP position) / obligations under the agreement in general (EU position). 3) Migration and the readmission of illegal immigrants. 4) The actors of the partnership. Ministers are requested to exchange views on how to ensure the participation of non-governmental actors in the future partnership. 4) Accession mechanisms to the ACP. The ACP side wants to maintain the principle that new members should belong to the geographical areas of the ACP.
The Private Sector and Development Strategies Group at civil servant level are asking their ministers among other things to address the following issues: 1) Investment guarantees and whether there is a need to set up of ACP-EU investment guarantee agency. There is a divergence on the nature and scope of the risks to be covered. 2) Disagreement on the issue of restitution of cultural property. 3) The actors of the partnership, i.e. participation of non-state actors.
ACP and EU Civil Servants in the Group responsible for Instruments and Management and Financial Co-operation include in the issues they want their ministers to address the following: 1) The scope of debt support for the ACP and procurement procedures. 2) The number and type of instruments of financial co-operation. 3) The terms and condition for financing under an agreed investment facility. 4) The process for programming and resource allocation. There is disagreement on the detailed criteria for resource allocation, the procedure for preparation and adoption of the indicative programme and the guideline for its content, and the periodicity and coverage of the review of the indicative programme. 5) The management of intra-ACP programmes and the eligibility for financing under such schemes. 6) Issues concerning competition and preference. 7) The definition of the responsibilities of the Commission’s Heads of Delegations.
Civil servants in the group responsible for Trade are yet to agree on issues that they would want their ministers to address. This area represents the widest differences between the two parties.
An observation that can be made is that, the issues put to the ministers to resolve are disturbingly similar to those put to them last February for the first ministerial negotiations in Dakar. This indicates that very little progress has been made in the negotiations at civil servant level since then.
3. IN BRIEF
The Centre right European People’s Party (EPP), which is the largest political groupings in the EP, has reached an agreement with the Liberal Group on whom to support for President of the EP. The liberal group will back French Socialist MEP Nicole Fontaine for the first half of the legislature, while the EPP will support Irish MEP Pat Cox of the Liberal Group in the second half of the legislature.
The Commission has proposed a decision to the EU Council aimed at the provisional application of the trade, development co-operation agreement between the EU and South Africa from 1 January 2000. This follows the decision by the EU Member states that the agreement was not a Community agreement but a Joint Agreement, meaning that it has to be ratified by all 15 national parliaments.
The Commission has welcomed what it describes as franker discussions than in the past, at last week’s Fifth Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Senior Officials Meeting (SOMTI). According to the Commission this has enabled progress to be made towards promoting trade and investment in the framework of ASEM. The SOMTI gave a less enthusiastic support for a new WTO round than the Commission hoped for. Participants also agreed that the ASEM Trade Facilitation Action Plan is not ambitious enough.
In the 1999 UNDP Human Development Report
released this week, 36 ACP countries are among the 40
countries with the lowest human development indicators.
A separate Gender Related Index showed that the
adult literacy rate for women in 1997 in sub-Saharan Africa, was
just 49.6% against the 65.9% of men. In the combined area of the
Caribbean and Latin America, in 1997 real GDP per capita for
women was US $ 3837 while that of men was almost three times as
much at US $ 9951.