th Session of African, Caribbean, Pacific-European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Rome, Italy, 11 to 15 October 2003.
The 6th Session of the African, Caribbean, Pacific-European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly (ACP-EU JPA) met in Rome, Italy from 11 to 15 October 2003. As usual, the joint plenary was preceded by a meeting of the ACP and also of the three Standing Committees established at the 5th session - on Political Affairs, on Economic Development, Finance and Trade and on Social Affairs and the Environment. The delegation consisted of Dr. Rob Davies and Ms Ntshadi Tsheole (ANC) and Mr Colin Eglin (DA). We were accompanied by Ambassadors Jerry Matjila and Lenin Shope, accredited to the EU and Italy respectively, Mr Saul Pelle of the South African Embassy to the EU in Brussels, Ms Clara Kiesewetter of the Embassy in Rome and Mr Grant Fredericks of Parliament's International Relations division.
The 6th Session was the first to operate according to the new rules of procedure adopted at the fifth session. These provide for resolutions to be tabled via the Standing Committees with the possibility of only two "urgent resolutions" per session being tabled independently on topics agreed by the Joint Bureau. The motivation for this new procedure is to encourage the JPA to focus its attention on the common issues of ACP-EU relations, rather than the bilateral issues that have in the past, in practice, dominated JPA proceedings. The 6th Session was also the first held in Europe to be at the seat of the rotating EU presidency rather than at one of the seats of the European Parliament (Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxemburg). A proposal to shift sessions to the seat of the EU presidency has been on the table for some time, but was given an added impetus following the impasse on the issue of the refusal last November by the European Parliament to allow on its premises members of the Zimbabwean delegation on the travel ban list, who were nevertheless admitted into Belgium on the grounds that the travel ban rules exempt participants in bona fide international meetings. This issue led to the failure to convene the JPA in Brussels last year, and if it had not been resolved, threatened all future JPA meetings in Europe. An ACP delegation to Zimbabwe also reported that the Zimbabwe Speaker had agreed to appoint delegations to JPAs consisting of persons not on the travel ban list (see below). Minister Paul Mangwana (who is on the travel ban list) was present, but as "technical advisor" to the delegation comprised of parliamentarians not on the list.
The ACP plenary, apart from the routine business of reviewing the agenda of the JPA, dealt with two other matters of substance. The first was the tabling of the report of an ACP delegation which visited Zimbabwe in September. This was led by the ACP co-President, Mr Adrien Houngbedji, and included Ms Ntshadi Tsheole. The report indicated that the main aims of the mission were to examine "alongside the authorities in Zimbabwe, the situation created following the cancellation of the 5th JPA session" and "explore a common strategy for ensuring the effective participation of Zimbabwean parliamentarians in the 6th JPA". The mission was also to "afford the delegation the opportunity [of]_assessing the political and economic situation" in Zimbabwe. The report concluded, inter alia, that "The present political and social problems being experienced by Zimbabwe are, to a large extent, the result of the agrarian reforms being undertaken in the country_[and] sanctions imposed by the EU and other donors are having an adverse effect on the country's development". The report also indicated that "The Speaker of Parliament undertook to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that Zimbabwe was henceforth represented by parliamentarians who are not blacklisted by the EU, in spite of the sovereign right of each country to determine who should represent it at JPA meetings". It furthermore spoke of the ACP mission "paving the way for a joint JPA fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe". After some debate, in which somewhat different views were expressed, the report was accepted by the ACP on the understanding that its formal tabling was to the ACP alone. The Joint Bureau, however, agreed that there would be a debate on Zimbabwe in the joint session, although no resolutions would be tabled. The ACP will table an "urgent resolution" on Zimbabwe at the 7th JPA. Although the report was formally tabled only to the ACP, its contents were communicated by the co-President to the joint bureau and it was much discussed in the debate in the joint session. Most MEPs disagreed with the assertion that Zimbabwe's problems with the EU fundamentally originated in a bilateral disagreement with the former colonial power, Britain, over the latter's reneging on commitments made at Lancaster House to support land reform. They argued that the crisis had gone much further and was fundamentally a matter of human rights and democracy. They generally, however, welcomed the idea of a joint mission provided that its terms of reference were acceptable to them. Ms Ntshadi Tsheole took the floor for our delegation, arguing that all major players in Zimbabwe had committed themselves to a process of dialogue and that the role of outsiders was to facilitate and encourage Zimbabweans to find solutions to the acute problems facing them. Several ACP speakers spoke of the challenge being for the EU to find ways to assist this process and arguing that sanctions and embargoes were the wrong way to go.
The second substantive issue in the ACP meeting was the hosting by Ethiopia of the 7th JPA. Eritrea objected saying that Ethiopia had rejected some of the findings of the boundary commission set up after the border war between the two countries, despite the provisions of the peace agreement that the commission's findings would be final and binding. We, along with most other ACP delegations, took the floor to argue that a meeting of the JPA in Addis Ababa would not mean endorsing any position on the boundary commission and that there were no grounds for us to impose an embargo on Ethiopia. The 7th JPA will convene in Ethiopia, but the joint bureau agreed to send a mission to Eritrea at around that time.
The Standing Committees tabled three reports and resolutions based on these. The report and resolution of the Political Affairs Committee was on the issue of child soldiers, and a feature of the plenary debate on this issue was the participation of Mr Olara Otunnu, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative. The Committee on Social Affairs and the Environment tabled a report and resolution on "Sustainable development and conservation of natural resources in ACP countries in the framework of the ninth European Development Fund".
We are full members of the Standing Committee on Economic Development, Finance and Trade and participated in the Committee's meeting on October 11th. The Committee tabled a report and resolution on the proposed "budgetisation" of European Development Funds and the use of funds from previous EDFs that remain unspent. "Budgetisation" is strongly supported by many MEPs on the grounds that it would enhance oversight and decision-making by the European Parliament (and potentially lay the ground for oversight by and input from the JPA) and also because they believe it would offer a more secure basis for funding than the present approach that depends on voluntary contributions by individual member states. A minority of MEPs, however, are concerned that "budgetisation" would subject EDF funds to the "annuality" principle, which means if the money is not spent in a particular budget year it is lost, and could also be "raided" for other purposes as several budgeted funds have been in the past e.g. to provide funds for Kossovo. The resolution did not take any stance on this issue, but rather called for the pros and cons to be laid out for debate at future JPAs. All of this takes place against a background of a debate on unspent EDF funds. Various estimates put the amount at between 2 and 10 billion Euros. This is not all allocated money, and certainly no pot that can be dipped into, but is reportedly dampening the enthusiasm of EU countries to contribute voluntarily to a 10th EDF.
In addition, the Economic Development, Finance and Trade Committee has as "work in progress" a report on the Cotonou Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. These have now entered into phase two - negotiations for EPAs with individual regions, with opening sessions with West and Central Africa held early in October. The absence of any all ACP-EU agreement at the end of the first phase (September 2003) was a cause of some disagreement and tension. A joint Ministerial meeting held on October 2nd, however, adopted a joint declaration and agreed on an all ACP-EU technical monitoring committee to oversee regional EPA negotiations and work towards an all ACP-EU agreement at the end of the negotiating process - in 2007. We were told that in Southern Africa, the negotiating group will be SADC minus MMZZ (Mauritius, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) with the DRC still to decide. South Africa will participate fully in the process even though we have a separate TDCA with the EU. MMZZ will join the Eastern African (Comesa-led) group. The draft Committee report spoke with concern of attempts to suggest that a WTO-compatible Free Trade Agreement must cover 90% of both partners' trade (We pointed out that the TDCA only covers 85% of our imports). It also spoke of attempts by the EU to "smuggle" Singapore issues (competition, government procurement, investment and trade facilitation) into EPA negotiations.
The Committee also had an opportunity to exchange views on the WTO Cancun Ministerial meeting. The joint bureau identified Cancun and its implications for EPAs as one of the two topics for "urgent resolutions". The plenary debate on this topic was, however, not very satisfactory. There were many speakers - too many from the platform - meaning that parliamentarians from the floor were limited to two minutes. A feature of debates both in the Committee and on the floor was an attempt by some EU officials to try to create distance between the G20 plus and other ACP countries. Mr Adolfo Urso, the Italian deputy minister who headed the European Council's delegation to Cancun, spoke of the G20 plus as an "anti-thrust" that had adopted "too radical" positions and "embittered negotiations" at Cancun. Others spoke in more measured tones of the G20 plus not representing the poorest and it being their concerns that should command priority attention. Several ACP delegations argued that the priority was to defend preferences. Others, however, including the EU co-President Glenys Kinnock spoke more positively of the G20 plus as having changed the balance of forces more in favour of developing countries. We took the floor in the Committee to defend the positive role of the G20 plus and to argue that there could be no return to the old order of preferences, that even existing EU CAP reforms would weaken preferences, and that the challenge was to defend the interests of poorer countries that historically depended on preferences on a new terrain that would also deal with the negative impact of subsidies - which, inter alia, were impacting negatively on West African cotton producers. We also took the floor for 2 minutes in the plenary debate. A compromise resolution was drawn up, with ACP input coming from the secretariat. As usual a number of amendments were proposed by several groups. We proposed several that were adopted by the ACP. In the voting process, the ACP supported a number of amendments from EU groups in addition to its own and opposed several from the conservative (EPP) group, including on the Singapore issues. This led the EPP to call for a vote by separate houses on the amended resolution after calling in a number of their members who had not previously participated in the proceedings. The ACP voted unanimously in favour, but the motion was lost in the EU house meaning that the JPA failed to pass a resolution on Cancun and EPAs. Whether this could have been avoided by the ACP engaging more closely with the EPP, and understanding more precisely their bottom line, is debatable. However, it is perhaps an indication of the distance between the ACP and the largest group in the European Parliament on, inter alia, the Singapore issues, despite attempts to suggest that the EU and ACP have common interests in rejecting pressures that would weaken preferences.
The other "urgent topic" was West Africa, where the focus was on Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau. After some amendments, the resolution on this matter was adopted by a large majority.
In addition to the topics on the agenda, the bureau also agreed to a debate on the International Criminal Court, particularly to express concern at attempts by the US to threaten to withdraw aid funds unless recipients agree to exempt US citizens from the ICC. We took the floor to speak in favour of the ICC and against US pressure in this regard.
We also tabled two written questions - one to the ACP Council and the other to the Commission. The co-President, however, allowed follow up questions on the Commissioner's statement to take precedence over follow ups to written questions.
There are a number of changes in the ACP leadership of the JPA. The term of office of the co-President ended at the conclusion of the 6th JPA. On the principle of rotation, the co-Presidency for the next two years will be held by the Caribbean region. That region agreed that Mr Sardjoe from Surinam will serve for one year, and Ms Hay-Webster from Jamaica for the second year. The Southern African region's bureau representatives were also rotated. On the basis of the alphabetical rotation, South Africa will replace Mozambique and serve for two years.
The Bureau and the Committees are due to meet in Brussels in mid-January, and the 7th JPA in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, provisionally from 16-19 February 2004. The reason for the earlier than usual convening of the 7th JPA is that there will be elections for the new enlarged European Parliament shortly thereafter.