The EU Council adopted on Monday a regulation that is supposed to encourage good social and environmental practise amongst countries benefiting from the Generalised System of Preferences. The regulation will enable GSP benefiting countries to obtain additional reductions in custom duties if they prove that they implement ILO norms on issues such as the right to organise and child labour, and the International Tropical Timber Organisation standards. Tariff bonuses will be implemented by country regarding the environmental clauses and by country or sector regarding the social clauses. The environmental clause only concerns goods made from tropical timber.
To benefit from the social clause, countries have to show: a) their legal provisions incorporating the ILO standards relating to organisation and collective bargaining and the minimum age to be allowed to work; b) measures taken to effectively implement the provisions; and c) the government's willingness to fully assume control of implementation of the provisions. To benefit from the environmental clause countries would have to: a) show internal legal provisions incorporating the International Tropical Timber Organisation standards; b) measures taken to implement provisions; and c) a commitment to maintaining and executing these provisions.
Tariff reductions on industrial products in effect double the existing GSP preferential margin. For agricultural products there is an increase in the reduction by: 10% for very sensitive goods, 25% for sensitive products and 35% for semi sensitive products. Non sensitive products will not benefit from further reductions.
The UK, the Netherlands and Sweden had wanted greater cuts arguing that the reductions decided on were not a great enough incentive for better social and environmental practise. Italy on the other hand was of the view that not enough consideration had been given to the sensitiveness of agricultural and textile products for European producers. The Council handed the responsibility of taking the individual decisions to grant preferences to the European Commission. The regulation in principle will be in force till the end of life of GSP regulations, i.e. for industrial goods January 1999 and for agricultural products June 1999. There is however a possibility of a renewal.
2. RESULTS OF EU UNCTAD SEMINAR
The EU and UNCTAD decided to intensify their co-operation regarding relations with ACP countries at a seminar in Brussels last Tuesday. The objective of the increased co-operation is to help ACP countries meet the demands of world trade in the light of attempts to make the Lomé Convention compatible with WTO rules. EU Commissioner for Development, Mr Pinheiro, said that the EU was asking UNCTAD to help the ACP States develop their negotiating position so that ACP-EU negotiations are as fair as possible. On this, the UNCTAD Secretary General, Rubens Ricupero, said that there were two possibilities: linking trade and investment to improve ACP States' capacity in terms of supply of goods and services on the global market; or stimulating sub-regional or regional agreements between these countries which are the furthest behind in terms of integration. Mr Ricupero said he understood the EU's determination to gradually proceed with the negotiation of free trade areas. The UNCTAD chief added, “We are going to help the ACP countries along these lines, but they must first of all create their own regional or sub-regional integration groups”.
3. EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT GREEN GROUP ORGANISES SECOND ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION SUMMIT (P7)
The European Parliament Green Group is organising a second P7 summit for alternative proposals for a new development co-operation policy from 10 June to 13 June 1998 in Brussels at the European Parliament. Among the speakers on the agenda this year are honorary presidents of the P7 - Jean Betrand Aristide, former President of Haiti, and Indian Vandana Shiva of the Foundation for Science and Technology and Natural Resources Policy (India), EU Commissioner for Development, Mr Joao de Deus Pinheiro and Peter Magande, Secretary General of the ACP Group.
Topics on the agenda include future perspectives of ACP-EU co-operation under Lomé, the Asian development model and the present crisis, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and Preserving bio-diversity and protecting the Third World's intellectual property rights.
For further information you can contact Tsigereda Walelign of the EP Green Group at Tel: + 32 2 284 33 54; Fax: +32 2 230 78 37; e-mail: twaleligneuroparl.eu.int .
4. AUSTRIAN PRESIDENCY OF THE EU
The following subjects have been tentatively placed on the agenda for development co-operation during Austria's Presidency of the EU (July 1 - December 31 1998) : Indigenous people, Micro-finance, the Lomé negotiating mandate, the SADC ministers ministerial meeting in Vienna, the possible conclusion of EU-South Africa trade negotiations, and the negotiation of a food aid convention. It is also likely that the Commission's new guidelines on operational co-ordination will be discussed at a meeting with Member States directors of development ministries on 12 October. A subsequent progress report on operational co-ordination will be produced for the EU Development Council at the end of November.
5. EU DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
The EU Development Council that took place on 18 May focused on the future of ACP-EU relations. It was noted that progress had been made on the EU position for negotiations with the ACP. The most controversial aspect - the trade regime were reserved for the General Affairs Council which also has the responsibility of approving the whole EU negotiating position. On a mechanism to offset fluctuations in export receipts from commodities a compromise was reached between Member States (Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands) who want to do away with present Lomé instruments - STABEX an SYSMIN and supporters (France) of a privileged assistance for countries who depend on agriculture and mining. Likewise on the financing emergency aid a compromise was reached between states in favour of the Commission's proposal aiming at greater flexibility in the mobilisation of funds (Belgium, Spain, France, Ireland and Italy) and others who do not see why there should be EDF financing while there is already an ECHO budget line. On a new approach towards the allocation of resources to each country, Spain and Portugal expressed their opposition against the past performance criteria. A compromise was reached on future performance referring to commitments taken. The Netherlands's wish to open up the ACP to other less developed countries did not receive further support.
Conclusions were also passed on: a) Cuba - the Council noted the ACP ministers' decision to grant Cuba observer status; b) on the follow up to the 1995 Gender resolution recommending: the integration of gender in all regulations and guidelines for co-operation programmes, continuation of efforts to reach better understanding of the connection between poverty and gender issues, the increase of co-operation between the Community and Member States on gender inviting them to prepare an assessment every two years so that the Council may take stock of progress achieved in 2000 and establish a timetable for actions after 2000; c) the fight against poverty - they called for a more global approach taking in account the connection between poverty and social exclusion, and to tackle the problems of equity, social justice, democracy, human rights and conflict prevention by granting special attention to the needs of lesser developed countries. This was to be achieved through, inter alia, increased investment into research into the causes of poverty, increased co-ordination in the of procedures for the implementation of aid to support and strengthen local systems and support to the involvement of the poor themselves in the analyses of poverty and the establishment of poverty; d) support of indigenous populations; e) assessment of development aid; humanitarian aid; f) and micro financing.
For the Council's report on the session you can contact the Eurostep
secretariat.