In a report drafted by Gay MITCHELL (EPP-ED, IE), the Parliament agrees to renew what is one of the EU's most important instruments for funding its development cooperation, with a budget of nearly €17 billion for 2007-2013.
Following pressure from MEPs, the instrument's scope will be restricted to developing countries. The Commission had wanted to extend it to industrialised countries which have pre-accession, neighbourhood or partnership agreements with the EU. MEPs, however, insist that development policy must focus on the developing countries, in line with the Millennium Goals.
Parliament also battled for, and won, a separate instrument for human rights. In addition, the Commission promised to allocate 20% of the geographical programmes to primary and secondary education as well as basic healthcare.
Parliament's powers safeguarded
Development policy is the only external relations area in which Parliament has co-decision powers with the Council. It was important for MEPs to safeguard these powers for the purpose of deciding on the geographical programmes and thematic areas of aid. The Commission had wanted to decide on its own after receiving the opinion of a committee of experts (the "comitology" procedure) but the accord reached with the Council preserves Parliament's co-decision rights.
The Commission must also inform Parliament regularly of the work done by the above committee. Parliament will receive, at the same time as members of that committee, the meeting agendas, the strategy plans for each country and the minutes of the meetings.
Lastly, the Parliament emphasises that the funding provided must be approved by the national auditing body and the parliament of each partner country concerned. Any suspension of aid will be decided by the EU Council of Ministers by a qualified majority, after Parliament has delivered an opinion.
Financing Instrument for cooperation and the industrialised countries
Parliament adopted a non-binding report by David MARTIN (PES, UK) on the financing instrument for co-operation with the industrialised countries. The Beneficiary countries are: Australia, Bahrain; Brunei, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong-Kong, Japan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Macao, New Zealand, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
The amendments adopted by Parliament can be summarised along three main headlines:
First to clarify and simplify the drafting of the proposal; second, to bring the proposal in line with other external instruments for financial assistance; and third, to improve Parliament's scrutiny of this instrument and involvement in programming.
1. Tightening and clarifying the proposal
A number of amendments are introduced in order to bring clarity and consistency to some aspects of the wording of the proposal. Most notably, the House finds the notion of EU "strategic interest" problematic in a legal text. Parliament agrees in principle with the Commission's views on the nature of this instrument which, unlike other "assistance" instruments, should also reflect the needs and interests of the EU. However, the notion of "strategic" interests is unnecessarily political or even geopolitical.
2. Bringing ICI into line with other external instruments
Parliament has included a number of highly relevant articles/clauses/recitals which are included in other instruments for external assistance:
Review Clause
Given the substantial changes introduced in the new proposal, with the extension from 6 to 17 countries, there is no reason to forget the "review clause" included in the other instruments for external assistance. This proposal is a new departure, involving new countries and activities. The Commission itself may want to propose adjustments for the mid-term review.
Human Rights/Democracy Clause
With the extension of the geographical coverage of the instrument, it is necessary, as in other instruments, to introduce a Human Rights/Democracy Clause. The wording in the proposed new recital mirrors the wording of article 181a itself.
MEPs see no reason not to include it here, particularly given the heterogeneous group of countries with whom the EU intends to develop cooperation: NICs from Asia like Singapore, Brunei, Hon Kong, Taipei, Macao or Gulf Cooperation Council Countries like UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.
General Principles
The section on general principles is incomplete: Complementarity and Coherence of cooperation are two important principles which should be included.
The new regulation will bring together a highly heterogeneous group of countries and set of activities. Henceforth the need to also introduce the "principle of differentiation" in both the recitals and the article on general principles: an assessment of the specific situation of the partner countries and the specific interests of the Community in a given country should be the first step to decide on the exact type of cooperation to be developed with a partner country.
Protecting the Community’s financial interests
The specific article on the protection of the Community’s financial interests should be included as in other instruments for external assistance.
3. The role of Parliament
Finally, Parliament believes that the role of the European Parliament should be strengthened with regard to the evaluation, reporting mechanisms and its involvement in a structured dialogue over multi-annual cooperation programmes.
