The European Parliament,

-  having regard to the Commission communication (COM(1999) 218 - C5-0179/1999 ),

-  having regard to Rule 47(1) of its Rules of Procedure,

-  having regard to the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation (A5-0227/2000 ),

A.  having regard to its resolutions of 28 October 1993 on increased coordination of the development aid provided by the Member States and the Community(1) , 21 February 1997 on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on complementarity between the Community's development cooperation policy and the policies of the Member States(2) and 17 February 2000 on the coherence of the various policies(3) ,

B.  whereas Article 177 of the EC Treaty states that Community policy in the sphere of development cooperation shall be complementary to the policies pursued by the Member States,

C.  having regard to the Council resolution of 21 May 1999 on complementarity,

D.  whereas Article 180 of the EC Treaty states that the Community and the Member States shall coordinate their policies on development cooperation and consult each other on their aid programmes, including in international organisations and during international conferences,

E.  whereas the European Union is the world's largest donor of public development aid,

F.  whereas the complementarity of development policies must form part of an overall strategy aimed also at ensuring the consistency and coordination of these policies,

G.  recalling, in particular, that on several occasions it has stressed the importance of achieving increased coordination and complementarity in order to further progress towards the objectives of European development policy; regretting the lack of real political will in this respect shown to date by the Council and the Member States,

H.  whereas the difference in outlook of national policies and European policy is one of the causes of the lack of coordination between Community policy on development aid and the policies of the Member States in this respect,

I.  convinced that the European Union is the appropriate arena for removing the political obstacles and making progress towards the objective of achieving complementarity between the policies of the Member States and Community policy,

J.  whereas on those occasions when the Commission and Member States have practised coordination in the framework of international organisations and conferences, for example during the Beijing and Cairo conferences, the results have been extremely positive,

K.  having regard to the new mechanisms introduced by the Bretton Woods institutions with effect from 1999, including in particular the Comprehensive Development Framework and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper,

L.  welcoming the Commission proposal, and hoping that it will lead to progress in the sphere of complementarity,

M.  whereas the European Union's development cooperation policy must be strengthened in view of world developments, particularly the increased inequality and disparities that are accompanying globalisation; whereas increased complementarity would facilitate this,

N.  whereas, in its communication on reforming external aid, the Commission makes provision for streamlining the comitology procedure,

1.  Deplores the fact that the important objectives for European Union aid, namely, complementarity, coordination and consistency, are dealt with separately and not in a coherent fashion;

2.  Calls on the Council and Commission to step up their efforts to achieve complementarity and, in particular, to implement the various resolutions on this question adopted by the Council and the European Parliament;

3.  Welcomes the fact that on the basis of pilot schemes conducted in several countries, the transmission of information and consultation on the ground appear to have improved in recent times;

4.  Considers, however, that the Member States should step up information exchanges and communication with the Commission in order to improve coordination between them and enable complementarity between development policies to be achieved;

5.  Regrets, however, that the Commission has not carried out an overall assessment which would have highlighted any difficulties and might have helped to determine more clearly exactly how to achieve the most rapid progress;

6.  Agrees with the Council and Commission that operational coordination, as long as it is based on a consistent framework, is the best way to achieve the objective of complementarity between the policies of the Member States and the Community and significantly influence the international coordination mechanisms which include all donors;

7.  Calls on the Council and Commission to amend the comitology system so as to concentrate Member States" participation during the planning stage, in order to ensure complementarity of planning and greater flexibility in the implementation of individual projects;

8.  Supports the Commission's proposals on operational coordination and the management of the Union's human resources;

9.  Emphasises that an indispensable prerequisite for achieving greater complementarity is the devolution of decision-making powers, within both the European Union and the Member States development cooperation administrations, and asks the Commission to present, in the near future, its plans on how it intends to strengthen decentralisation;

10.  Believes that, in order to enhance the effectiveness of Community aid, an increase is needed in the Community staff responsible for managing development cooperation funds;

11.  Welcomes the fact that the Commission has listed certain areas in which it is best placed to act, but regrets that this list does not include overall responsibility for reviewing development policy and making proposals in this area; this review should be undertaken in close cooperation with the Member States and is a vital precondition for attaining the objective of complementarity as well as making it possible for European concerns and ideas to be given a hearing in international fora;

12.  Considers increased consistency, in the broadest sense of the term, of the European Union's development initiatives a matter of priority with a view to increasing the effectiveness and credibility of the European Union's development policies;

13.  Calls on the Commission to draw up as quickly as possible an operational action plan to identify and propose priority action areas and instruments to make it possible to speed up the introduction of complementarity;

14.  Considers that, in addition to the present communication, the Commission should draw up an overall text addressing the issues of complementary, consistency and coordination, in order to strengthen Community and bilateral development policy across the board within the European Union and thus give it a higher profile;

15.  Regrets that the crucial question of coordination within internal fora has not been given sufficient attention among the concerns and proposals set out by the Commission;

16.  Calls on the Council and Commission, in the framework of complementarity, consistency and operational coordination, to take into account the existence of non-governmental agencies, particularly NGDOs, and to support and encourage their participation in Community and Member State bodies working to achieve coordination;

17.  Stresses that, if it is to be effective, on-the-spot coordination must be the responsibility of the countries concerned as part of strategies they themselves have chosen;

18.  Agrees with the Commission that progress on complementarity requires both sufficient political will and operational resources, and is delighted that recently this political will has strengthened at Union level despite the reticence of certain Member States; calls, however, for this increased political will to be translated into concrete action;

19.  Calls on the Council and Commission to inform Parliament about concrete progress with planned and on-going initiatives to promote complementarity, particularly in relation to the process of defining country strategy papers;

20.  Regrets that, as in other areas of development policy, the Commission does not have sufficient resources to carry out the necessary studies and analyses, and was therefore obliged to use work produced by other bodies, whose political and social sensibilities differ from those of the European Union; calls, therefore, for the Commission's capacities to be sufficiently enhanced in this area;

21.  Deplores the fact that the Commission has not carried out an assessment of coordination in international organisations, and calls for a study to be conducted into the real opportunities for coordination between the Commission and the Member States in international organisations and conferences with a view to increasing the complementarity and efficiency of their activities in these fora; calls on the Secretary-General of the Council and High Representative for the CFSP to draw up a study into the scope for coordinating the Member States" positions within the various international fora;

22.  Urges that the standard framework drawn up by the Commission for national strategy papers for each Community country should be implemented as soon as possible;

23.  Calls on the Commission and Member States to coordinate their external services so as to ensure that complementarity is effective on the ground; with this in view, calls on the Commission to take account of the objective of complementarity in its planned measures for decentralising and reforming the delegations;

24.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission, and to the parliaments of the Member States.

(1) OJ C 315, 22.11.1993, p. 250. (2) OJ C 85, 17.3.1997, p. 178. (3) Texts Adopted, Item 7.