1.
EU BEGIN POLITICAL DIALOGUE WITH ZIMBABWE UNDER COTONOU
The
President in Office of the EU Development Council Swedish
Minister – Gun Britt Andersson - and European Commissioner
for Development, Poul Nielson, this week, met with
Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, at his invitation,
according to a Commission press release. The press release
states that both parties, i.e., Mr Mugabe and the EU, agreed that
there was a need for dialogue in conformity with article 8 of the
Cotonou Agreement (ACP-EU Agreement). This article provides for
political dialogue focusing on inter alia “specific
political issues of mutual concern … Broadly based policies
to promote peace and to prevent and manage and resolve violent
conflicts …”
However
several Members of the European Parliament’s Development
Committee have strongly criticised Commissioner Nielsen on
agreeing to receive Mr Mugabe. UK MEP Nirj Deva questioned
whether the Commissioner would have held discussions with Hitler
or Stalin. John Corrie UK MEP and co-chair of the ACP-EU Joint
Parliamentary Assembly called on the EU to suspend cooperation
with Zimbabwe under Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement. Mr
Nielson’s attempts at dialogue however did receive some
support from a few MEPs including Spanish MEP Francisca Sauquillo
Perez who warned against the excessive pressures that the
Zimbabwe population would be under if cooperation is suspended.
2.
COMMISSION PROVIDES 35 MILLION EURO TO THE DRC
The
European Commission has adopted a 35 million euro programme for
the growing humanitarian needs in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), where the number of refugees and displaced persons
now exceeds 2 million (See PAF 219). According to the Commission,
this will enable the Commission’s Humanitarian Office (ECHO)
to maintain assistance supplied to the victims of conflict in the
DRC throughout the current year. The programme has 4 priorities
–
·
A standing response capacity for both medical and non-medical
emergencies (2.75 million euro)
·
Public health care in 102 health districts covering around a
third of the country (13.66 million euro)
·
Care and maintenance for recently returned refugees (4.2 million
euro)
·
An integrated nutrition, food aid and food security programme
(11.7 million euro)
3.
COMMISSION TO MAKE HUMANITARIAN AID TO CHILDREN IN CONFLICT A
PRIORITY
EU
Commissioner for Development, Poul Nielson, last week, expressed
his favour in developing a standardised reporting system that
could be used to collect data on children affected by conflicts,
at a seminar organised by the Swedish Presidency of the EU in
Stockholm on children in conflict.
The
aim of the seminar was to identify best practices in implementing
the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and to make
concrete proposals on what action the international community
should take in future.
According
to an Inter Press Service (IPS) report, participants of the
meeting - senior officials from the EU, the UN and
non-governmental organisation (NGOs) - agreed that it is just as
necessary to attack the root causes of war - poverty, inequality,
ethnic or racial strife - as to endeavour to help deal with the
aftermath. Part of the solution, they said in a concluding
statement, was to ensure that the "inter-linked policy areas
of asylum, refugee reception and migration on the one hand and
development co-operation and humanitarian assistance on the
other" fully take children's special needs into account.
The
Commissioner reported that since the beginning of 2000, the
Commission’s Humanitarian office has spent approximately 40
million euro on initiatives targeting children. This issue is
supposed to be a priority for the Commission Humanitarian Office
this year.
But
the seminar's keynote speaker, Graca Machel, author of a
comprehensive report for the UN on children in conflict
situations called for stronger EU action to identify and
address war-affected children's needs and to improve the
performance on the part of EU member states in relation to the
international target of 0.7 percent of GNP in Official
Development Assistance (ODA). She also underscored the need to
improve the quality and breadth of educational opportunities in
conflict and refugee situations and underscored the link between
access to education and psychosocial healing.
According
to UNICEF estimates, over the past decade armed conflicts have
caused the death of 2 million children and disabled or seriously
injured 6 million children. In this period, 1 million children
have become orphans and over 20 million children have been forced
to flee their home, with 300 000 having to take up arms.
4.
UK MEP CALLS FOR COMMISSION TO STAND UP TO DRUG COMPANIES IN THE
DISPUTE OVER AIDS TREATMENT
UK
MEP Glenys Kinnock has called on the EU Trade Commissioner,
Pascal Lamy, to urge multinational drug companies to stop
fighting efforts to cut the price of life saving medicines for
the poor in developing countries. The MEP called on Mr Lamy,
this week, to back the German Development Minister, Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul’s call for 39 pharmaceutical companies call
to abandon their legal challenge to a South African law designed
to lower the price of patent-protected HIV and AIDS medicines.
Ms Kinnock, speaking in Pretoria where the legal case was being
heard, said
“Lamy and
everyone else have to ask themselves what the WTO is there for
– to represent its members or the profits of pharmaceutical
companies?”
She
warned the Trade Commissioner that he would find it difficult to
win support from developing countries for a new round of WTO
talks unless their concerns were taking in account –
“The EU and US will have to understand that the three big
developing countries – South Africa, Brazil and India - will
be holding a new round hostage over their right to buy generic
drugs.”
Despite
wide spread condemnation by campaign groups of the actions taken
by the firms, the EU Trade Commissioner has resisted appeals to
condemn the court action. At a trade and poverty conference in
Brussels this week, Mr Lamy said it was not Commission policy to
comment on legal cases and stated that he believed that the
existing TRIPs agreement balances the interests of the industry
with medical needs of developing countries. A spokesman for
the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries also denied
that the industry was blocking efforts to provide lower cost
drugs to developing countries.
According
to an IPS report 2,000 protestors this week marched on the court
dealing with the legal case in Pretoria and to the US Embassy to
hand over a memorandum explaining the nature of the protest.
Similar demonstrations were held in most major cities of the
country.
The
South Africa Government Medicines Act, being challenged by the
pharmaceuticals, allows the government to set up systems for the
parallel importation of expensive drugs - a pricing committee to
monitor drug costs and generic drug substitution. Prices differ
radically in different markets and because South Africa is
perceived by the industry to be a developed country, most
patented drugs are much too expensive for the poor to afford. It
also drives up the costs of private and public healthcare.
It
has been calculated that less than one percent of the people who
are HIV-positive in the world have access to life-saving
anti-retroviral drugs. According to the Treatment Action Campaign
in South Africa (TAC) 400,000 people have died from the disease
since the pharmaceutical industry first launched its fight
against the legislation. TAC has applied to the court for
permission to support the government as a friend of the court.
Its members have collected evidence throughout the country from
those people living with HIV who do not have access to
potentially life-saving AIDS drugs because they are too
expensive. These affidavits will form part of the application.
The
South African judge dealing with the case has adjourned it till
April to give the drug companies more time to prepare their
arguments. Meanwhile Ms Kinnock has said she would be lobbying
other EU Member States to back the German minister’s call
for the drugs’ companies to abandon the case.