Geología general

Parliament responded negatively to a Commission communication on the long-term prospects for cooperation in the 21st century398_{. The communication was criticised for}

its purely macroeconomic approach and insufficient analysis of the root causes of underdevelopment. It did not take account of the international economic environment or of social, environmental and cultural factors; nor did it criticise the structural adjustment policy implemented by the Bretton Woods organisations. The latter were so controversial at the time that it was even suggested that the Community should not cooperate with them unless provided with evidence that their policies were actually effective and that their decision-making processes had been democratised.

396 _{EP legislative resolution of 15 December 1995 embodying Parliament’s opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation on}

decentralised cooperation, OJ C 17, 22.1.96, p. 458 following on from the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation with the same title. Doc. A4-301/95. Rap: Vecchi.

397 _{EP legislative resolution of 15 December 1995 embodying Parliament’s opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation on}

cofinancing operations with European non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) in fields of interest to the developing countries, OJ C 17 of 22.1.96, p. 453 following on from the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation with the same title. Doc. A4-300/95. Rap: Paakinnen.

398 _{EP resolution of 30 September 1993 on development cooperation policy in the run-up to 2000, OJ C 279, 18.10.93, p. 18 following on}

The resolution did, however, have the virtue of calling for the cooperation policy to follow the line of its founding principles, in other words solidarity with the countries of the South, and with the methods applied within the Community itself. It also called for the elaboration of regional models that would take into account the diversity of the countries involved. Specifically, Parliament called for poverty reduction, promotion of democracy, peace and arms reduction, increased North-South financial assistance (with the 0.7% standard seen as merely a first short-term objective), preparation of a European strategy on indebtedness, balanced agreements on commodities and democratisation of international institutions. Finally, it called for the cooperation policy to be integrated into the Community, notwithstanding the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty.

This last point received fuller treatment, and was partly amended, in a slightly later resolution399 _{in which Parliament}

stressed that the Treaty of Maastricht gave the Community increased powers; noted that the legal measures already existed to improve coordination, but that a stronger political will was needed in order to breathe life into them; asserted that it was necessary to enhance coordination at three levels: the political level, the level of operational coordination (particularly for urgent humanitarian aid), which should be a priority, and the level of international organisations.

Within the framework of Community policies, this was in effect a call for cooperation to be brought within the European system since the Community could ensure better operational application than the Member States, or could at least ensure that actions were implemented in line with the aims of Article 130 of the Treaty. The Community’s ‘internal’ policies should therefore also take account of the needs of development policy.

In order to understand properly the meaning of the later resolutions on the same issue, it must be remembered that even prior to the two resolutions referred to above, the Council had set out its views on complementarity between the development policies of the Community and of the Member States, stating that the main instrument to be used was coordination (November 1992) and that it had also established common policy guidelines for coordination in four sectors (May 1993). In December 1993 it adopted a resolution on operational coordination that provided the basis for a pilot scheme implemented in six states. At the end of May 1996 the Council made a further statement on the need to increase coordination in the light of this scheme, the results of which Commissioner Pinheiro described as disappointing400_.

Even prior to this statement by the Council, the Committee on Development and Cooperation had been concerned about the slow rate at which coordination was proceeding (again in view of the pilot scheme), and organised a hearing in January 1996, with discouraging results:

399 _{EP resolution of 28 October 1993 on increased coordination of the development aid provided by the Member States and the}

Community, OJ C 315, 22.11.93, p. 250 following on from the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation with the same title. Doc. A3-293/93. Rap: Pery.

400 _{EP – Committee on Development...- Report on complementarity between the Community’s development cooperation policy and}

- global coordination ensured by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank was accompanied by considerable confusion among the European countries in these two organisations;

- there could be no coordination at European level without a convergence of views on the formulation of policies in the recipient countries and among the donors;

- the activities of the Member States were characterised by a wide range of actors, channels and procedures;

- within the European Union there was often closer coordination with external rather than internal actors;

- there could be no satisfactory coordination unless the recipient countries were themselves capable of administering aid efficiently; operational coordination among donors, led by donors and at the initiative of donors was extremely restricted; coordination was best where the recipient countries themselves took it in hand and knew how to manage it in any given situation with methods peculiar to each country;

- although the European Union was the largest global donor, it had difficult in making its voice heard internationally and, more particularly, within the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank;

- on the ground, European activities were highly disparate in terms of the disbursement of funds and the instruments used; each agency and each Member State had procedures that not only differed widely but were sometimes inconsistent; some European aid was very concentrated on the ground, other aid focused on the capital, and in these circumstances it was very difficult in practice to achieve convergence 401_.

It was in this frame of mind that Parliament approached the next Commission communication on this issue402_{. It considered that the EU’s inability to achieve the}

complementarity provided for in the Maastricht Treaty was a political failure on the Union’s part that was primarily due to the absence of political will in the Member States. This failure was all the more serious since the values on which the common development policy was founded were likely to help the Union to acquire an external identity and make the European identity more recognisable on the world stage. Specifically, Parliament

noted that some Member States rated coordination at global level higher than coordination at European level; believed that the tragedy of the Great Lakes region of Africa demonstrated the urgent need for effective coordination of European Union policies and programmes; believed that the developing countries as well as Europe should benefit from the end of the Cold War and that there was an urgent need for a coordinated effort by the European Union and its Member States drastically to reduce the world’s arms trade.

Following criticism aimed mainly at the outcome of a hearing organised by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the resolution listed a series of proposals defining the

401 _{Ibid. Direct quotations are italicised.}

402 _{EP resolution of 20 February 1997 on Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament, COM(95) 160 - C4-}

role of Parliament and its committee, and foreseeing close cooperation between the latter and the Council.

The question of coordination was closely linked to that of the effectiveness of development policies. This was dealt with in a resolution the following year403_{, in which the European}

Parliament called on the Commission to focus its efforts on a smaller number of framework programmes and to better integrate projects using a sectoral approach in order to increase the effectiveness of aid and its impact on the economic conditions in the recipient countries. The Council, on the other hand, would have to resolve the problems involving the implementation of the budget lines created as a result of the centralisation of financing decisions within the Council’s management committees.

In addition to these institutional issues, there were also calls to the Member States to undertake evaluations of their own development cooperation programmes, comparable to those used for Community programmes, and to improve coordination.

In addition, the resolution examined the internal measures that the Commission needed to adopt to ensure adequate evaluation. These would include setting up a central unit that would evaluate the more significant projects while they were still in progress with immediate feedback on operations. Parliament should also ensure that it was capable of analysing and evaluating specifically the political aspects, although this should not duplicate the Commission’s technical evaluation.