Beyond Lomé IV
Future Relations between the EU and the ACP Countries
NGO Discussion Document, March 1997
Coordinated by the NGDO-EU Liaison Committee, with contributions from a number of
European Development NGOs and Networks
Foreword
This document is a discussion paper written from a European development NGO
perspective, identifying principles and issues and suggesting approaches to be taken in
the debate on the future of ACP-EU relations. It is not a position statement by the
NGDO-EU Liaison Committee or any NGO or network. We hope that it will in itself be a
useful contribution to the debate, and will lead to discussion and reactions which will
feed into the establishment of collective NGO positions and strategies.
The document was produced by a drafting group set up following a seminar on
"Future EU Relations with the ACP Countries" bringing together some forty
development NGOs, researchers and others in Brussels on 22-23 October 1996. The drafting
group was made up of:
- Helen O'Connell (One World Action/WIDE)
- Ted Van Hees (EURODAD)
- Simon Stocker (Eurostep)
- Myriam Van Der Stichele (Transnational Institute)
- Gordon Deuchars (NGDO-EU Liaison Committee)
A considerable number of NGOs and networks made contributions or commented on drafts.
INTRODUCTION
The world has changed since 1975 when the first Lomé Convention began. The
end of the Cold War transformed the European Union's domestic and foreign agenda. The EU
is concerned, rightly, with its near neighbours in eastern and central Europe, in the
former Soviet Union and around the Mediterranean. It is preoccupied, too, with its own
enlargement and monetary union. However, alongside these priorities, the EU has other
important obligations and responsabilities.
In the past twenty years economic liberalisation has flourished. The GATT Uruguay Round
Agreement and the establishment of the World Trade Organisation, combined with the
installation of neo-liberal economic reform programmes at the national level have paved
the way for global free trade in finance, services and goods. These changes bring new
challenges and obligations.
One-fourth of the world's people live in poverty, 70 per cent of whom are women.
Inequalities are growing within and between countries and within and between peoples.
Although much progress has been made, the debt crisis continues to be an insurmountable
barrier to sustainable development. The economic reform process underway in most
developing countries has yet to ensure sustainable and equitable social and economic
development for the majority. Conflicts are escalating within many countries with the
consequent increase in the number of displaced people and refugees. Respect for human
rights is still qualified and women's human rights, though enshrined in conventions and
international agreements, are seldom guaranteed in practice. In addition, despite positive
measures implemented at many levels, degradation of our environment continues and sharp
discrepancies in the consumption and monopolisation of resources persist.
As a leading member of the international community, the EU is wrestling too with issues
of global governance. The reform of the United Nations, long overdue, is slow in coming.
The IFIs and the World Trade Organisation are under considerable criticism for their lack
of accountability and transparency. On the international agenda, too, are minimum labour
standards and codes of conduct for transnational corporations and the sale of arms. The EU
is also wrestling with issues of its own governance, as the Intergovernmental Conference
attempts to find institutional solutions adequate for the Union's internal tasks and
external responsibilities.
NGOs and people's organisations - human rights, consumer, environment groups, trade
unions and other social movements - are concerned about poverty, inequality and
unemployment, global insecurity, environmental degradation. They are dismayed by the lack
of genuine democracy and transparency in political decision-making structures. They are
aware of the essential interdependence of our societies - north, south, east and west.
The need for global solidarity has never been greater. The European Union, as the
world's largest donor and trade block, has the potential to take a leading role in shaping
a new approach to issues of global security and solidarity. It has a progressive body of
policy on development cooperation, poverty eradication, gender equality and equal
opportunities, democracy, human rights, and social affairs. These progressive policies are
enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty and in a series of resolutions of the Council of
Ministers following up the Treaty. The EU has pioneered a very important and comprehensive
agreement with a group of 70 Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries, the Lomé
Convention.
The challenges of the late 20th century demand that the European Union recognises the
fostering of sustainable economic and social development and poverty eradication as its
over-riding objectives. All other development cooperation objectives, and all other areas
of policy as they affect developing countries (trade, agriculture, fisheries, monetary
union, enlargement , immigration, foreign affairs) should be judged by the extent to which
they further these priority objectives. Article 130v of the Maastricht Treaty makes the
commitment that account is to be taken of development policy objectives in all Community
policies which affect developing countries. The December 1993 Council of Ministers
Resolution on "The fight against poverty", recognised that 'the objective of
combating poverty in the developing countries cannot be achieved without improving the
international environment and reducing the constraints, in many instances decisive, that
are imposed by economic relations with the outside world on the effectiveness of national
policies to combat poverty'.
It is time to act decisively on these policy statements.
Furthermore, the European Union and the Member States have committed themselves to the
agreements reached at the recent United Nations conferences on environment and
development, human rights, population and development, social development, women, habitat
and food security. These agreements require significant action by the EU, as well as by
ACP governments and others.
The debates and forthcoming negotiations on future EU relations with the 70 African,
Caribbean and Pacific countries provide the EU with an excellent opportunity, in
partnership with the ACP states, to respond to these global challenges and fulfil its
commitments. The joint ACP/EU framework for political dialogue is a unique forum for
defining new strategies for long-term sustainable and equitable economic, social and
political development and security.
Such new strategies could allow sensitive and flexible approaches to trade
liberalisation, privatisation and regulation in line with responding to local and national
differences. Investment in basic social services, measures to increase women's and men's
access to and control over economic resources, and support for social and civil
organisations could become central to development cooperation programme. The twin goals of
poverty eradication and sustainable and equitable development could become the objectives
of trade and investment cooperation and arrangements. Such new strategies could put the
promotion and protection of human rights, and in particular women's human rights, and the
fostering of genuine democracy and good governance at the center of political relations
with ACP and other developing countries.
In the final analysis sustainable and equitable social, economic and political
development requires progress on policy coherence within the European Union itself, and
coordinated action to influence policy decisions taken in international bodies, such as
the G7, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. In turn, this would facilitate greater policy
coherence within ACP countries.
This paper will concentrate on identifying issues and suggesting approaches on the
basis of principles which we as NGOs think should be at the heart of the new partnership.
However, Chapter 1 will look at the Commission's Green Paper in
the light of NGOs' experience and approach to development.
Go to Contents Page / Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter
4/Chapter 5/Chapter 6 /Chapter 7
Updated on April 3, 1997
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