The EU Trilogue (the Council, Parliament and the Commission) will meet to discuss the suspension of the EU budget lines on Tuesday 23 July. This follows the European Commission's suspension of the execution of certain budget lines (mostly social and development funds) that were adjudged to have no legal base by the European Court of Justice. It is thought that a temporary solution to the suspension of some budget lines, including the co-financing line, will be found at this meeting. However the human rights budget line is likely to stay frozen as it is considered to be more problematic than others. There is the fear that the temporary solution may grant the Commission the right to execute, without a legal base, only smaller budget lines worth up to only 5 million ECU for a transitional period of two years, after which all budget lines - small and large - will require a legal base. The co-financing budget line is not thought to be under threat as a legal base is set be found for it in the coming three weeks. NGOs are calling for a return to the situation of the 1998 EU budget.
The problem stems from the previous UK Government's block of a £200 000 EU grant from the Union social fund awarded by the Commission to organisations in Spain and Austria to help rehabilitate socially disadvantaged women. The UK Government together with Denmark and Germany lodged a complaint at the Court of Justice for the establishment of clear rules on authorised spending. The underlying problem behind the issue is the so called comitology issue or the division of authority, including that over budget lines, amongst the Union's institutions. The EU Budget Commissioner, Erkki Likanen, described the problem as institutional stating, “the legislative authority rests in the Council of Ministers, but the budget authority is in the European Parliament. It is a typical problem of the EU system”.
Concerned NGOs and citizens based in Brussels will demonstrate outside the European Council on Tuesday 26 June, afternoon to coincide with the Trilogue meeting to protest against the situation. For further information you can contact the European Anti-Poverty Network at Tel: + 32 2 230 44 55; fax: + 32 2 230 97 33.
Several European NGO networks including Eurostep have signed up to a lobbying paper on the EU 1999 budget. For a copy of this lobbying paper you can contact the secretariat.
2. DECLARATION OF THE GREEN GROUP P7 SUMMIT
The European Parliament Green Group's alternative conference on development, 'P7 Summit', ended last week Friday with participants making proposals in the form of a declaration. Some of the main points of this are summarised below.
On debt participants called for: the conversion of the debt of the most indebted countries into projects aiming at sustainable development; and the freezing of lending to known corrupt dictators.
On the statutes of the WTO there was a call for better provisions for production methods that respect environmental and health standards.
On the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, MAI, participants called for: a) UNCTAD to assume the role the OECD has in setting up negotiations on the Agreement and include in negotiations all countries that could be affected by the agreement; b) the subordination of the Agreement to existing international conventions on the environment, cultural rights and the protection of the consumer; c) the OECD's code of conduct on multinationals, which is currently optional, to be made obligatory world-wide; d) the promotion, in the Agreement, of uniform technical standards for goods, which disallow the use and production of goods banned in the North to be used in the South; e) the right of all states party to the Agreement to call for waivers on articles/practises that are adjudged to hamper their sustainable development; f) public democratic debates on the Agreement in all states and an evaluation of its likely impact.
In the concluding remarks, Belgian Green MEP, Paul Lannoye, said that P7 Summit participants should not be against an international agreement regulating investments in principle, as developing countries have suffered greatly under the present unregulated system. Thus, it was not just enough to criticise the MAI. Rather the Agreement should be turned on its head to include provisions that favour developing countries. He said the proposals on the MAI developed at the Summit could help form the position agents of development could take, before OECD negotiations on the MAI resume in October. Mr. Mamadou Diouf of the Council for the Development of Social Sciences in Africa (CODESRIA), the co-organiser of the Summit, said there was a need to set up a network of information between the North and the South in order to create meaningful alliances to discuss issues such as the WTO. He said the P7 Summit should work as a flexible and creative forum for proposals on development. MEP Magda Aelvoet (Belgian Green) announced that a group of participants of the Summit had taken it upon themselves to produce a small bi-annual bulletin on various issues such as agriculture, bio-diversity and the WTO. It was also announced that due to the upcoming elections of MEPs in 1999, the P7 Summit may only take place much later in the following year. A provisional copy of the P7 Declaration in French can be obtained from the secretariat
3. EU AGRICULTURAL MINISTERS FACE LAST CHANCE TO REFORM EU BANANA REGIME
Due to its technical complexity, next week's meeting of EU agricultural ministers represents virtually the last chance for the ministers to agree to reforms of the EU banana regime before the January 1999 deadline for reform imposed by the EU. Last year a WTO arbitrary panel ruled that the EU system of preferential treatment of traditional producers of bananas in the ACP and the EU was incompatible with international trading rules.
Germany, Austria and Nordic countries are against the Commission's move to charge a higher rate of duty on Latin American bananas. They are also pushing for the outright abolition of import quotas in favour of a tariff only system. On the other hand, France, Spain and Portugal are arguing for a reduction in the quotas granted to Latin American producers, and for an increase in financial assistance to the impoverished banana producers in the ACP.
According to Commission officials the final outcome may hang on parallel discussions on the Commission's proposal on the EU olive oil regime. Spain, the main opponent to the Commission's proposals on olive oil is willing to sign up to a compromise deal which grants Spain unused portions of the annual production quotas allocated to Italy, Greece and Portugal in exchange of an increase in aid to EU and ACP banana producers.
4. IN BRIEF
The ACP will hold an internal meeting on the debt burden on 25 -26 June at the ACP House in Brussels. Press and NGOS are invited to a press conference on 26 June at 16 30.
Eurostep's next Partnership 2000 paper (series of papers on the Lomé process) should be out next week. The Oxfam drafted paper titled - Partnership 2000: Improving the Quality and Effectiveness of European Union Aid in the new EU-ACP Agreement discusses ways of better implementing the European Development Fund, EDF.
Transparency International, TI, the German based NGO fighting against
corruption in business transactions, is calling for greater EU campaigning
on good governance in Nigeria. Mr Elshorts, TI's managing director, sent
a letter to EU Foreign Affairs Council President, Mr Robin Cook, calling
for the issue of political prisoners in Nigeria to be raised at the European
Summit in Cardiff.