PAF  ProActive File  - Regular News Update from Eurostep

No. 318
27 June 2003

1. EU REFORMS COMMON AGRICULTURE POLICY

EU agriculture ministers reached a political agreement on Thursday 26 June concerning reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), following 11 months of discussions. The main points agreed in the reform are in decoupling aid from the volume of production. According to the European Commission, in future, the vast majority of subsidies will be paid independently from the volume of production. To avoid abandonment of production, Member States may choose to maintain a limited link between subsidy and production under well-defined conditions and within clear limits. These new "single farm payments" will be linked to the respect of environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards. EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler stated “We are saying goodbye to the old subsidy system which significantly distorts international trade and harms developing countries”

Development NGOs have longed called for a revision of the CAP to allow fairer trade with developing countries. The new reform is yet to be analysed and commented on by many NGOs and other observers.

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/898|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=

2. THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CRITIQUES COMMISSION PROPOSALS CHANGING THE BASIS OF EU AID TOWARDS ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA

The European Parliament is examining a Commission’s proposal changing the distribution of the EU aid so that the aid allocated for Asia and Latin America - € 3.8 million for the period 2003-2006 - would be moved to the Union’s budget covering external relations, rather than development. As a consequence of this scheme, the funds allocated would not just be aimed at poverty eradication but would cover other policies such as the fight against terrorism and immigration control. According to Mrs Mirjam van Reisen, the proposal represents a backward  step as it would divert the EU development policy just towards the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The European Voice quoted Mrs van Reisen as saying that: “There is an increasing tendency to focus Europe’s aid on the ‘old camp’ in Africa. We have long passed the old colonial days and should not return to those concepts now. Europe deserves a development policy that is based on international principles, particularly the [UN’s] Millennium Development Goals [targets for poverty reduction], with a clear focus on poverty eradication.” However, according to MEP Marieke Sanders, rapporteur of the Asia and Latin America Regulation within the European Parliament’s Development Committee, the Commission would have assured that the proposal is simply due to reorganization matters.

3. CIVIL SOCIETY WEBSITE ON ACP-EU COOPERATION

A website aimed at facilitating information exchange amongst ACP and EU civil society actors on ACP-EU cooperation has been launched this week. The project managed by Euforic – the electronic platform for information on EU development cooperation- involves a number of ACP and EU actors including Eurostep, the ACP Civil Society Forum (represented by MWENGO and ENDA), ICCO and ECDPM.

Its aims are to extend and enhance the appropriate use of information and communication technologies by civil society actors in the ACP and Europe, raising awareness, and creating knowledge-sharing systems and partnerships on priority issues like poverty reduction, sustainable development, and the integration of ACP economies in the world economy. The main topics under ACP-EU cooperation currently featured on the site are on ACP-EU trade negotiations and the programming of aid to ACP countries. The site also features a wide range of documents for ACP-EU civil society, including analytical reports on ACP-EU cooperation, reports of civil society meetings and lists of key organisations in ACP and EU countries. See http://acp-eu.euforic.org/civsoc/

4. IN BRIEF

On 21 and 22 June around thirty delegations took part to the fourth WTO mini ministerial conference, which was held in Sharm El Sheikh – Egypt. Concerning the issue of medicines, although the US blocked a draft agreement proposed on December 2002, the US Trade Representative, Mr Robert Zoellick, announced the possibility of reaching an agreement on the issue before the Cancun Summit, which will take place in September. On agriculture, the issues concerning the abolition of subsidies and dismantling of market barriers still remain under discussion.

The European Commission defined its cooperation strategy with Sierra Leone, which would benefit of € 220 million coming from the 9^th European Development Fund. The funding, distributed from 2002-2007, is mainly aimed at the rehabilitation of roads and social infrastructures, at stabilising the country macroeconomic situation and at the implementation of the country's Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The European Commission has adopted a Communication on the Reform of State Owned Enterprises (SOE) in developing countries. The Communication focuses on public services and calls the EU Member States to assist partner governments in developing countries in their design of the SOE reform. According to the Communication, the Commission engages itself in several measures including a dialogue with the local governments and the Bretton Woods Institutions with the purpose of contributing to a clear definition of the objectives of the SOE Reform.

The European Parliament (EP) Development Cooperation Committee considered the Commission Communication on energy cooperation with developing countries weak and not enough ambitious. With the adoption of Mr Wijkman' s report on the Communication, MEPs intended to assess the Commission strategy, taking into account the general aim of poverty eradication and the commitments to sustainable development as defined at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. According to the EP, the EU did not allocate the needed financial resources.  It also called for earmarking of sufficient additional financial resources to guarantee effective energy cooperation with developing countries and to create a special fund on energy in the European Development Fund.

Following the adoption of the eligibility criteria for non-state actor access to the European Development Fund (EDF) by ACP and EU Ministers last month, Eurostep and Saferworld have written to the ACP-EU Council of ministers requesting for clarification on a number of aspects on the criteria such as how non-state actor access to the EDF will be managed in contested states like Somalia. The eligibility criteria are supposed to be discussed in each ACP country and adapted according to national characteristics. The Cotonou Agreement calls for an ongoing dialogue between the ACP-EU Joint Council of Ministers and civil society. See http://www.eurostep.org/pubs/position/acp-eu-cotonou/mon3022.pdf

5.  FORTHCOMING EVENTS UNDER THE ITALIAN PRESIDENCY

6. NOTICE FOR EUROSTEP MEMBERS

Staff changes at Novib

Conny Heemskerk and Caroline Wildeman Novib, staff members and for long periods contact points for Eurostep within their organisation, are leaving Novib at the end of this month. Caroline who was last working in Novib’s research unit will leave for Benin with her husband, who has been appointed as the new Dutch ambassador to that country. Conny leaves Novib’s advocacy unit to work with a housing organisation in The Hague. We would like to thank them and wish them well in their new positions.

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