The European Commission's Common Service for Management of Community Aid commonly known as SCOOP is not yet operational despite initial plans to have the service in place by the end of April this year. According to a Commission spokesman, SCOOP, could begin functioning in July. The service initiated by DG VIII (Directorate for development and relations African, Caribbean and Pacific, ACP, Group) is supposed to take responsibility for the implementation and evaluation phases of all aid projects decided on by the Commission's Directorates involved with external relations. Thus Directorates - DG IA (relations with Eastern Europe), DG IB (relations with Mediterranean, the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia) and DG VIII will still be in charge of the indicative programming, the identification, the formulation and financing decision of a project. The subsequent phases of the project (preparation of tenders, financial management, provision of information of financial situation of projects, evaluations, etc.) will then be carried out by the Common service who will then report back to the relevant DGs, in contribution to the development of aid policy, thus completing the project cycle. Projects from DG I (relations with North America, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand) concerning only China will also receive the same treatment. The European Community Humanitarian Office, ECHO, will retain control over the implementation of projects it decides on. The explanation given for this is that handing implementation responsibility to SCOOP on ECHO projects could foil the short term nature of and speed required to put ECHO projects in place. However technical assistance experts on ECHO projects will be managed by SCOOP.
SCOOP will have 648 staff who will be taken from external relations DGs (30% from DG IA, 34 % from DG IB, 34 % from DG VIII, 2% from DG I). The appointed Director General of SCOOP is former Deputy Director of DG VIII, Mr Philippe Soubestre. Needless to say these transfers will require major restructuring of the existing directorates. At present only 75% of existing DG posts going to SCOOP have been decided on. It has been suggestions that in two years time DG VIII might be moving to SCOOP. Supervision of the Common service will be carried by a steering Committee of the Director Generals of all the external relations DGs, ECHO and SCOOP.
The setting up of SCOOP is only a part of the larger initiative to restructure and modernise the administrative and financial procedures of the Commission proposed by EU Budget and Personnel Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen. On top of the transfers to SCOOP, DG VIII is expected to lose further posts in the decentralisation process to delegations to areas within and outside DG VIII's geographical scope (ACP). Delegations to all geographical areas are managed by DG IA.
2. CORRECTION ON THE REPORT ON THE CHILD LABOUR MARCH
In the last PAF (No 86, 17 April) it was reported that Indian NGOs accused the organises of the Global March against child labour as having a hidden agenda of protectionism. This was solely based on a report that appeared in an Indian newspaper reflecting the views of certain Indian NGOs. What was not mentioned in the previous PAF report was the involvement in the March of several of Eurostep's members, including Novib - the European co-ordinator of the march, Intermon - the national co-ordinator for Spain, Mani Tese - national co-ordinator for Italy, and Oikos. The March's objectives of: raising awareness on child labour, urging countries to ratify conventions against child labour, mobilising international resources to support education of all children, mobilising public opinion against child labour, demanding an elimination to end most exploitative forms of child labour, promoting positive actions for children by enterprises and consumers, and ensuring proper rehabilitation and restoration child labourers, are aims shared by Eurostep members.
The March is a historical event linking about 800 organisations across over 90 countries in the struggle against child labour. Each continent involved is represented in the international steering committee. So far the Global March has succeeded in attracting a lot of support from politicians and the media.
The March is set to march right on into the ILO Conference on Child Labour in Geneva on June 2nd where the International Co-ordinator of the March, Kailash Satyarthi, will address the delegates and call for a new convention against child labour.
In response to the allegations made by the Indian NGO, a Novib representative declared that the March is neither dominated by the US or is advancing the interests of the US. She said that the March organisers do not advocate boycotts of products and rather advocated positive action against child labour. In response to criticism that the March is over extravagant, she argued that it was essential for campaigns such as the March to target the media in order to draw attention to the issue, pointing out that it was naive to think that money should only be spent on children's projects.
3. ACP SECRETARY GENERAL URGES CAUTION OVER COMMISSION FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS PROPOSAL
Mr Peter Magande, the secretary-general of the ACP has expressed reservations over the Commission's proposal for inter-regional free trade agreements to replace current preferential trade agreements with ACPs by 2005. Mr Magande said that while the Commission's proposal maybe of good intention, the grass-roots capacity of many ACP countries will limit their ability to negotiate these agreements. The Secretary General said that even free trade between the members of the Southern African Development Community, SADC, the most advanced of Africa's regional groupings, was not likely to become a reality till 2004, suggesting an even longer period for preparations for negotiations with the EU. Mr Magande added “At the moment we have limited capacity to produce and process the kind of goods that would be able to compete effectively on the European markets. If we go for free trade, where would we have reciprocity? We might end up being basically a market for Europe. That would not develop our capacity for industrialisation. One is a believer in free trade, but to be an active participant, we need a minimum level of infrastructure.”
In order to boost the private sector which along with the development of regional organisations, Mr Magande sees as crucial to preparing ACPs for free trade, he called for semi-governmental financial institutions to be set up to give potential investors access to cheap loans and a guarantee scheme set up that would impose limitations on interventions by ACP governments. To assist infantile regional bodies, the ACP head called for technical expertise from the Union.
4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
London 8-9 May G8 Finance and Foreign Ministers meet. Agenda includes reform of the Lomé Convention Barbados, 8-9 May EU-ACP Meeting Brussels, 18 May EU Development Ministers meet
5. THE EU DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL - NOTICE FOR EUROSTEP MEMBERS
It has been understood from one of our Member organisations that unlike the mandate on trade, the debate on aid would be completed at the EU Development Council Meeting on 18 May. The 18 May meeting will not even discuss trade. The Netherlands is still a little bit ambiguous on social development
and the European Development Fund: on the one hand clearly in favour of Shaping Agenda and of program aid for sectors like education and health, but on the other hand very much doubting the role and quality of the Commission in education and health and wanting to see a sharper division of labour on this with member states.
6. IN BRIEF
EU special envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Mr Aldo Ajello in discussion
with the press in Vienna, this week, called for an international conference
on security and co-operation in Africa, to negotiate the rules of the new
form of co-operation between the EU and African countries.