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1. MAIN LATIN AMERICAN BANANA EXPORTERS REJECT COMMISSION STRATEGY.
The representatives of Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Columbia, Mexico and Venezuela have rejected the new Community strategy aimed at settling the dispute over bananas. The nine Latin American banana producers said they were making a counter-proposal to the formula proposed by the EU-“first come-first served” as this did not assure fair competition.
2. EU DOES NOT ATTEND INAUGURATION OF CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF DRC.
The French Presidency, on behalf of the EU has declared that the EU takes note of the installation of the Constituent and Legislative Assembly on 21 August 2000 in Lubumbashi, but had decided not to attend the opening ceremony on the grounds that it is not certain that this new institution is compatible with the national dialogue provided for by the Lusaka Agreement.
The EU hopes that the functioning of the Constituent and Legislative Assembly will provide a positive contribution to preparing the national dialogue without taking its place.
3. LIBERIA: COMMISSION CALLS FOR RELEASE OF JOURNALISTS, RECALLING PRINCIPLES OF COTONOU AGREEMENTS.
The European Commission is concerned over the arrest of four journalists in Liberia on charges of espionage. Commissioners Patten and Nielson say that hey have no reason to believe the charges levelled against the journalists have any foundation and they appeal to the Liberian authorities to release them immediately.
The two Commissioners recall that respect of democratic principles, including the freedom of the media is an important element in the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement.
The EU has since 1994 financed a rehabilitation programme in Liberia for the sum of EUR 52 million, of which 43 million has already been disbursed. As implementation of this plan comes to an end, the indicative programme presented by Liberia in the context of the ACP/EU Convention, currently on the negotiating table, has not yet been signed.
4. HUMAN RIGHTS: TYRKEY SIGNS TWO UN CONVENTIONS.
Turkey’s Permanent Delegate to the United Nations has signed two UN Conventions in New York relating to political and social rights, that had been opened for signing in 1966 and which took effect in 1976. The communiqué from Turkey’s foreign ministry stresses that Turkey was one of the few countries which was still not signatory to the two Conventions and “it has been observed that this situation cast a shadow upon Turkey’s considerable efforts in the human rights area and caused question marks over Turkey’s intentions in this regard”, whereas today it “is an EU candidate country”. The signed texts, which will take effect as soon as the Turkish Parliament has adopted them are:
- The Political and Civil Rights Convention, which in particular covers the protection against torture and other inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment, protection against arbitrary custody and prosecution, freedom to work and settle, freedom of thought conscience, religion, speech and rights for ethnic minorities to enjoy their cultures and the right to believe in their own religion and teach it and right of using their own language;
- The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Convention, which ensures equality between people independent of their origin, sex, language, religion, political ideas, and which ensures trade union rights, including the right to strike, the right to education, to conducting cultural activity, and improving working conditions.
5. OPERATION “A PLANE FOR IRAQ”
Hundreds of French personalities, including former European Commissioner Claude Cheysson and General Pierre Gallois, launched the operation “a plane for Iraq” whereby they have decided to violate the air embargo on civilian flights with Iraq by flying to Baghdad on 29 September. Some 150 celebrities could take the flight to denounce the desperate situation in which the Iraqi population has found itself after ten years of total embargo. 600.000 children under five have died as a direct result of the embargo, they say.
6. DECISION ON INTRODUCING “TOP SECRET” CLASSIFICATION IN EU DOCUMENTS.
The decision of the Secretary General of the Council/High Representative for CFSP relating to “measures for the protection of classified information applicable to the General Secretariat of the Council” has just been published in the Official Journal (C239 of 23 August). The 18-article decision, taken following an agreement reached on 27 July, introduces in the degrees of classification of documents treated by the Council the degree of “TRES SECRET/TOPSECRET”, following the political impetus provided by the European Council of December 1999 in Helsinki to the “development of European Union assets for the military and non-military management of crises in the framework of a strengthened European security and defence policy”.
The other degrees of classification are SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL and RESTREINT, and detailed procedures are provided for each type of document.
This measure, that is said only to concern 3% of the documents, is particularly important for the development of EU/NATO relations in the context of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). In the talks that in July led to Javier Solana’s decision, a certain number of countries (the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Denmark) had expressed their preference for maintaining the existing procedure for all ESDP documents.
In practice, following this decision adopted through the written procedure, the register of public documents of the Council accessible on the internet (http://ue.eu.int) will contain no reference to documents classified as mentioned above.
7. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
The European Commission is organising for the very first time a conference on 12 October 2000 in Brussels with representatives from the European civil society, business community and academic community, in order to discuss and exchange views on the EU-Mercosur and EU-Chile association negotiations that are currently taking place.
The aim of this first conference is to create an opportunity for stakeholders to acquire first hand information from the main EU negotiators as regards that state of affairs on the negotiations and to have an exchange of views with them.
Registration for participation should be returned to the secretariat by 15 September at the latest .Se web page: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/mercosur/conference/index.htm.
8. IN BRIEF
On 24 August the European Commission has decided to allocate an additional EUR 13 million to the World Food Programme (WFP). The aid comes in addition to a contribution of EUR 90 million decided in July for which a contract is to be signed shortly by Commissioner Nielson.
The announcement of
this new contribution comes just a few days after the accusations
made by a WFP spokesperson who affirmed that the United Nations
programme had not yet received any Community aid this year. The
Commission formally denies the allegation and points to aid
provided since the beginning of the year (136.000 tonnes of food
aid).
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