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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


Contents

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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