The Praesidium of the European Convention presented the first 16 draft articles to the Convention’s full membership at its Plenary meeting on Thursday 6 February.  These include the Objectives of the Union (article 3) and the proposed levels of competence for the Union (articles 8 to 16).  In article 3 “poverty eradication and the protection of the rights of children” are explicitly included in the paragraph on the EU’s external role.  However, during the presentation of the articles in Plenary these elements were described as the “weakest” aspect of the article by the secretariat.  Members have been who invited to comment and make proposals by Friday 14 February.

Under the draft articles on competence development cooperation and humanitarian aid are included as areas of shared competence.  However, a clear distinction is made between development cooperation and humanitarian aid and most other areas of policy with shared competence.  The specific qualification for development is that “the exercise of that competence may not result in Member States being prevented from exercising their competence”.  The explanation given is that development is identified separately to indicate that “even though the Union exercises its competence in this area exhaustively, Member States still retain their competences…..the Constitution does not envisage the abolition of national programmes”.  In the plenary a further explanation was given, namely the principle of shared competence envisages the possibility of Union legislation in these areas.  Development and humanitarian assistance do not need much legislation, but are primarily concerned with specific actions or common policy.  These explanations do not address sufficiently address concerns already being raised that the articles as currently proposed weaken the Union’s role in development cooperation, particularly in comparison to the proposals on the Common Foreign and Security Policy.  It seems to imply that Member States programmes can be autonomous, not only in practice but in policy, increasing the potential for the Union’s different development programmes to pursue contradictory objectives;  

A number of NGOs and representatives from EU institutions and member states on 31 January participated in a conference on the Convention’s impact on the future of EU development policy. The meeting took place in Brussels under the umbrella of CONCORD, the new co-ordination structure for European NGDOs. A wide range of NGOs from the development and humanitarian sectors participated, and the panel featured Sally Keeble, British Junior Minister for Development, Koos Richelle, Director General for DG Development of the European Commission, and Guido Van Hecken, Chef de Cabinet of the Belgian Development Ministry.

All speakers expressed disappointment with the way development policy has been discussed in the Convention. Sally Keeble focused on three key aspects of improving EU’s aid, namely making poverty reduction in developing countries the core commitment of EU development programmes with the goal of ensuring 70 per cent of assistance goes to low income countries; simplifying EU development instruments; improving the overall effectiveness of European aid. She expressed disappointment that ‘so far the Convention has missed a trick in failing to give proper attention to development and some of the policy proposals would actually make things worse.’ Likewise, Koos Richelle exclaimed that ‘20 years of development co-operation thinking appears to be lost in the Convention’. Guido Van Hecken similarly identified the state of affairs in the Convention as worrying, but also emphasised that one must consider how development policy can work together with other areas to provide the basis for a sound foreign policy.

On the part of NGOs, critique of the current form of debate in the Convention was also offered, with Helen O’Connell of One World Action stating that ‘Development co-operation should be determined by the rights and needs of the world’s poorest people, not the EU’s self-interests abroad. Europe’s credibility as a global development player is at stake.’ In line with some of the conference’s main speakers, Simon Stocker of Eurostep expressed worry at the lack of transparency in the work of the Convention, especially in the Praesidium, stating that ‘the Convention risks ending up in a club of 13 people taking decisions affecting 453 million’.

All participants, NGOs as well as the representatives of governments and EU institutions, agreed on the need to establish closer and more co-ordinated efforts to enhance the profile of development policy in the Convention.

• The European Commission will organise a symposium entitled “A New Century of Advances in Market Integration: The European Union’s market Access Strategy” on 27 February 2003 at Palais des Congrès in Brussels. The focus will be on progress made by the EU in opening up markets. This will lead to specific workshops, each of which will consist of panellists from both private and public sectors. Thematic areas will be: 1)Problems of accession of new WTO members, 2)Trade facilitation and non-tariff barriers to trade, 3)Problems arisen by third countries’ trade defence, 4)EU bilateral trade agreements, 5)Challenge of implementing China’s access to WTO. Mr Pascal Lamy, European Commissioner for Trade, will chair the meeting.

• The European Commission has earmarked another €5 million for emergency food aid operations in Ethiopia. This allocation will enable the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to distribute 175,750 tonnes of basic food commodities to vulnerable families in the Northeast of the country (Afar and Somali region). This response to the humanitarian crises affected the Horn of Africa will bring the total Commission emergency aid to Ethiopia to €102 million.

• The Humanitarian Aid office (ECHO) of the European Commission is ending its activities in Macedonia after almost ten years of emergency aid. In view of the substantial number of IDPs still in temporary accommodation ECHO’s food assistance programme has been extended to spring 2003 when the housing restructuring programme is expected to be completed. The withdrawal from Macedonia will eventually enable ECHO to focus its emergency aid on other countries of the world, mainly Africa and Asia, while the Commission will provide long-term assistance to FYR of Macedonia via other instruments.

• The European Parliament expressed all its concern over the weakened role of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as a result of the fact that the rotating membership during last year's session included a large number of countries accused of human rights violations. It consequently deplores that EU Member States didn’t abstain in the vote that elected Libia to chair the UNCHR this year. MEPs also advocated a resolution inviting all states to introduce a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty completely and, among other things, also called for a resolution on all forms of forced work.

• The European Commission has presented a proposal to renew Daphne, the programme in the fight against violence against woman. Daphne II will be provided with €41 million for 2004-2008. The funds will be used to set up a network and information exchange between organisations dealing with this issue, as well as to spread awareness among the public.

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