1. NO DUMPING NO CRY
Following up on last week’s report on Eurostep’s actions highlighting incoherence of EU policies, an active campaign took place on the 10 and 11 November in Brussels. A delegation consisting of Ms. Fiona Black, Managing Director of the Jamaican Dairy Farmer’s Federation (JDFF), Ms. Mary Malcolm, a dairy farmer with 14 cows, member of JDFF, Ms. Rian Fokker, policy advisor, Novib, Mr. Jan Klugkist, policy advisor, Novib and Brita Bastogi, Assistant Director, Eurostep were received by the members of the Cabinets of Commissioner, Nielson (development), Fischler (agriculture) and Lamy (trade).
The delegation handed over the report,” Dumping in Jamaica; Dairy Farming undermined by subsidised EU exports” researched and written by Eurostep’s lead agency on coherence, Novib.
The two Jamaican ladies asked the representatives of the Cabinets to change EU policies as fast as possible and specifically to react on the case of Jamaica. The dumping of EU subsidised milk powder on the Jamaican market, making it impossible for the local dairy farmers to compete with the prize of the EU subsidised milk powder, with the consequence that they had to throw their fresh milk into the ditch.
Eurostep further calls on the European Commission and the European Council to:
The delegation also met with members of the European Parliament. The MEPs shared the delegation’s concerns and promised to take further steps following up with concrete proposals on a resolution proposed by vice-president of the Development Committee Max van den Berg on the issue of coherence.
Eurostep will continue to pursue the issue on the level of Ministers of Agriculture and Development.
2. PRE-COUNCIL BRIEFING FOR NGO’s AND JOURNALISTS.
On 10 November Commissioner Nielson had decided to make a pre-council briefing.
This is the first time that NGOs have been invited so such a briefing. The briefing, co-chaired by the Development Commissioner, Mr. Poul Nielson and the Finnish Minister for Development Ms. Hatu Sassi, was in principle limited to the item on the Development Council agenda on Environment and Development. The Eurostep delegation managed non the less to negotiate with the President-in- Council and the Commission to be allowed to present their case of incoherence of EU policies – the concrete example from Jamaica- at the briefing Commissioner Poul Nielson introduced the two Commission Communications to be discussed at the following day’s Development Council meeting: Integrating Environment and Sustainable Development into Economic and Development co-operation Policy” and “Forest and Development: the EC approach”. In his speech the Commissioner emphasised the importance of the works of the NGOs in this area. Mr. Nielson also drew the audience’s attention to a series of publications called “A Better Life with Nature’s Help” published by UNDP and the European Commission also available at the briefing.
Ms. Satu Hassi spoke especially about the challenges of climate change. As both Minister of Development and Environment, it was obvious that the issue was close to her heart.
After the Minister had spoken interventions from three NGOs: WWF, Christian Aid and Rainforest Foundation were heard.
After a round of questions Mr. Jan Klugkist and Ms. Mary Malcolm presented the Jamaican case on incoherence of EU policies. The Finnish Minister responded that she would take up this serious issue with the other development Ministers at the Council meeting.
3. PRESS-BRIEFING OF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEETING
At the end of the Council Development meeting on 11 November the Finnish President-in Council, Ms. Satu Hassi and Commissioner Poul Nielson briefed the press on the meeting.
Ms. Hassi went through the agenda of the meeting, which comprised:
1- Representation by Commissioner Nielson on the objectives and priorities for EC development co-operation: five main priorities were emphasised: 1) increased focus on the EU’s assistance to the poorest countries and populations; 2) make assistance more effective as a whole; 3) achieve greater complementarity based on co-operation with other donors and greater coherence based on more effective internal co-ordination; 4) introduce an overall strategy to ensure coherence between emergency aid, rehabilitation and development; 5) secure European public support for community assistance.
2- Environmental Issues and Development Co-operation: a) Council conclusions on Climate Change and Developing countries; b) A report to the Helsinki European Council on Integration of Environmental Considerations into the Community’s Development co-operation Policies.
3- ACP-EU Negotiations: The Ministers had especially focused on the two key issues decisive for the success of the negotiations – the inclusion of good governance in the essential elements of the new Agreement, and the definition of the new trade agreement – and examined possible elements for a compromise with the ACP-States on these issues.
As concerns the latter issues, further to an informal meeting at Ministerial level held on 19 October between the EU (Presidency + Commission + Germany, as co-chair of the negotiating group on economic and trade co-operation) and the ACP (Jamaica, Mauritius and Côte d’Ivoire), the Commission had sketched out elements for a possible compromise, i.a. based on:
These ideas are still under scrutiny within the relevant Council bodies, and will be debated further by Development Ministers.
As to the question of including good governance into the “essential elements” of the new convention (whose breach could therefore lead to the partial or complete suspension of the application of the provisions of the convention as regards the contravening country under the terms of the “non-execution clause”), Ministers were asked to consider two approached: 1) retain the initial EU proposal to include good governance in the essential elements but partially break the link with the non-execution-clause – for instance, last July the EU had suggested that in case of breach of the principles of good governance, it would not make use of the emergency procedure, which allows immediate suspension before consultations are entered into; 2) include good governance as a “fundamental principle” of the new Convention, rather than an essential element – this seems acceptable to the ACP – but make the fight against the corruption a visible part of the non-execution clause.
It can be noted in this context that a third outstanding issue in the EU-ACP negotiations concerns the financial allocation for the 9th European Development Fund (2000-2006). The Commission has proposed to maintain in real terms the volume of the 8th EDF, that is 14.330 million euro.
It is to be seen if the EU will insist on maintaining this figure should Cuba and East Timor be accepted as new members of the ACP-group from year 2000.
Other issues on the agenda will be dealt with in the next PAF. It should, however, be mentioned that the Finnish Minister in her briefing to the press, mentioned that under the discussion of the agenda point on Coherence she had raised the specific example by Eurostep (Jamaica) and discussed with her colleagues how to take this further. The Development Ministers had decided that the dossier would have to be looked at also by other Councils.
4. REGIONAL INTEGRATION
On Tuesday 9 November a meeting took place in the European Parliament on regional integration. It was intended to bring together the regional experiences from different parts of the world, looking at any potential implications they might suggest for the future agreements between the ACP countries and the EU. The meeting, sponsored by Max van den Berg MEP, and organised by Eurostep and the Transnational Institute presented experiences from Mercosur, Mexico, the Asian Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) and ASEM, and Southern Africa. While all four case studies presented different perspectives there were many similarities that raised concerns. The four presenters (Candido Grybowski from Ibase in Brazil, Manuel Perez from RMALC in Mexico, Joel Rocamora from the Institute for Popular Democracy in the Philippines, and Dot Keet from the Cape Town University) agreed that in the current global context the survival of small countries and economies depended on their integration into larger groupings of countries. Clearly the EU's promotion of regional agreements is primarily based on its own economic interests. However, the EU has a responsibility to enable and support regional integration processes in other parts of the world, which are determined by themselves, not by the EU or other major trading players. Regionalisation is a complex and slow process, as the 50-year experience of the EU shows. Priority needs to be given to reducing the different levels of economic development internally before opening the regional market to free trade externally. Within the EU the structural fund has helped reduce internal differences in economic development. However, so far little provision has been made for such mechanisms within most developing regions, which seriously questions the potential success of the regional integration processes.
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