Mr President, I would like firstly to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Zimmerling, on his work, which has allowed us to reach a consensus on a good regulation on decentralised cooperation, which is necessary to the process of modernising Community development policy. And this consensus has been reached not just in Parliament, but at interinstitutional level, which means that, as soon as possible and for the next three years, we will have a renewed legal basis for implementing this policy. Decentralised cooperation, that is to say, the participation of non-state actors and sub-state bodies – both of the European countries and of the receiving countries – is a necessary condition for a participative development which responds to the needs and initiatives of the population to which cooperation is ultimately directed. It is an added factor in the democratisation of developing societies, since by means of decentralised cooperation the social fabric is strengthened, and it is also a proven element in the effectiveness of aid and a factor in making the concept of appropriation of development processes a reality. Development cooperation ceased some time ago to be solely bilateral or multilateral and governmental or non-governmental. The Group of the therefore enthusiastically supports increasingly improved decentralised cooperation. Let us accept therefore that – from the point of view of sustainable and participative local development – neither those people in Europe who believe that this approach may be used to encourage movements outside of the States nor the authorities of the receiving countries who are afraid of losing control over the aid which they consider to be their own are right. Decentralised cooperation looks more towards the actors than towards economic resources or the sectoral contents of cooperation. With regard to economic resources – mentioned by the rapporteur – we have given up our initial desire for greater allocation of funds for the sake of the interinstitutional agreement, but we have a commitment from the Commission to maintain adequate execution of the programme and we believe, however, that the decentralised cooperation line must continue to increase and not be a minor budget line from which funds can be taken in order to fill other gaps. At the moment we have EUR 9 million for the first year and EUR 6 million for the two following years in line B7-6002, without prejudice to the fact that resources from geographical lines can benefit decentralised cooperation actions. We do not believe this to be satisfactory – we would like to have more – but, for the sake of consensus, we can reach this agreement. Since we are talking about a transversal line, it has no sectoral limits and we in the Group of the have tried to open it up to the greatest possible number of beneficiaries, so that social organisation is effectively promoted. It is made explicit that local public powers are also considered municipal authorities and we are happy with the extension of the Regulation and the modifications which have been introduced, bearing in mind the references to the Gemelli, Carrilho and Howitt reports and we hope that the Commission will henceforth comply with the time periods for assessment and presentation of results established by Parliament so that we can analyse the effectiveness of this instrument in terms of development.

Political group: PSE