Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are talking about the activity of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 2000 and this is perhaps a rather different type of report to those produced in previous years on this issue. Firstly, because specific events occurred in 2000 which have had an effect on the workings and even the very identity of the Joint Assembly, but also because we deliberately wanted to give the report a somewhat innovative approach. In addition, therefore, to the traditional reminder of hard data on the activity of the Assembly for that year, we opened a more politically-charged debate on the role of the Assembly itself and, what is more, on how we should view the role of the Members of the European Parliament in the Assembly. In addition to any formal or legal considerations, we feel that as Members of this Parliament who are also members of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, we are not there as individuals. We are delegates and therefore our activity within that forum must be guided and then judged by our Parliament. We therefore believe that, from a democratic point of view, it is crucial that this annual report on what has taken place in the Joint Assembly should cease being a largely routine and bureaucratic process and become a balance of accounts presented to the European Parliament by its delegates. Similarly, the debate on this annual report should be an opportunity for Parliament to guide the work of its representatives in the Joint Parliamentary Assembly over the coming months. Looking at the events of 2000, what marked the year was the approval, following extremely lengthy negotiations, of the Cotonou Agreement, which ratifies the legitimacy in law of the Assembly and brings it up to the category of Joint Parliamentary Assembly. Above all, 2000 marks a turning point in the European Union’s cooperation with the ensemble of the 77 States from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific that are already associated members. The effective implementation of the Treaty is also, undoubtedly, the most significant development this year for the Assembly. The catalogue of events is described in some detail in the report. There was the Abuja Summit in Nigeria in March and the meeting in Brussels in October, together with the new designation of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly. Important events took place at those meetings, such as the general report on globalisation, the hearing on AIDS and the notable presence of President Josselin and of Commissioners Lamy and Nielson. An unfortunate problem was also encountered, however: the presence of representatives of the European Parliament in plenary, and especially in the working groups, was lower than we had hoped for. Amongst the challenges that remain, the Treaty provides for the mobilisation of civil society, which is the collaborative fabric required for its very implementation, and here we need to consider how we can ensure that this is achieved efficiently and without confusion, putting each person in the right position for him or for her. Another challenge is to exploit the Assembly’s huge potential for coordinating positions of the associates of the ACP and the European Union, in order to make the process of cooperation and development and the Treaty itself more effective and perhaps also to establish positions of consensus for approaches in other forums such as the WTO, for example. One of the prime conditions for achieving this is for the European Parliament to assume full responsibility for work in the Joint Assembly and to give this work the priority it deserves. I shall conclude by saying that in the report’s conclusions, I included a few lines on how I think the Joint Parliamentary Assembly should operate. Of course, decisions on this fall to the Assembly itself, but Parliament has the responsibility to state its criteria in order to guide the work of its Members in this Joint Assembly. These guidelines coincide almost entirely with the proposals that have been agreed in the Assembly’s own working group on how it should operate. Finally, I would add that our motion for a resolution includes many amendments by Members of various groups, which all make a valuable contribution, as well as two further amendments, which were tabled in the debate in Parliament by the European People’s Party. I would ask you to vote in favour of the former. The latter seeks to remove a paragraph that was added to my initial proposal in an amendment by Mr Van den Bos, of the , which was approved in committee. I think that this paragraph addresses a series of important issues which could be debated by the ACP-EU Assembly’s own committees and I do not think it would be useful to remove it at this stage. It does not hold us to anything and does provide a range of interesting ideas. I would therefore ask the PPE Group to withdraw this amendment and, if they do not do so, I would ask you to vote against it. To conclude, I wish to thank the secretariat of Parliament’s Committee on Development and Cooperation for their considerable cooperation. I should also like to thank my fellow members of that committee and all of you for your attention and for your votes, which I hope will be favourable tomorrow.

Political group: PSE