Mr President, certain circumstances could have justified postponing this report to a time when everything was available, including the amendments. However, in any event, I believe that we, as MEPs, must take the work forward so that the MEDA report is not delayed at any time, with the resulting harm that that could mean for the countries concerned. Having expressed these reservations, I shall summarise the MEDA programme. I shall then give my opinion of the proposed regulation, as well as the report as a whole. As is well known, the MEDA programme comes within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which was created after the Barcelona declaration of November 1995. The Foreign Affairs Ministers of the European Union participated in that meeting. This is an initiative which encompasses 27 countries from both sides of the Mediterranean. On the one side, there are the 15 states of the Union and, on the other, Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and the Palestinian territories. As for Libya, for obvious reasons, it only has observer status. Our main objective, through this cooperation, is to forge links, especially in the numerous areas of common interest which we share with our Mediterranean neighbours. To this end, around EUR 3 500 million have been invested over the last five years, shared between two broad cooperation formulae: bilateral and regional. Specifically, this economic and financial aid must facilitate the completion of a free trade area by 2010, to which end aid programmes have been implemented, both for macroeconomic reforms and for sectoral reforms and structural adjustments. We must remember that the ratio between the per capita income of the European Union and the MEDA countries is 1 to 10, that is to say a very considerable gap. Therefore, in my judgement, it is logical that the sustainable economic development of the area should be our main goal. In this regard, I must add that the commercial balance between these two blocks favours the European Union to the tune of EUR 21 billion. Meanwhile, measures are also being considered to facilitate private investment in these 12 countries, which in 1994 amounted to EUR 3 500 million, particularly by means of updating legislation and administration, as well as by means of meetings between companies belonging to the MEDA countries and the European Union. We should also remember that we are discussing an area of the world which is particularly affected by military conflict. There is no point in listing the different wars being waged by many of the countries which are members of this partnership. The MEDA programme seeks to clear the way towards a definitive and lasting peace in that part of the world by means, amongst other things, of economic stability. We are talking about a population of around 230 million people which, given the current rate of growth, will reach 300 million in 10 or 12 years time. There is a significant diversity of religions and traditions in all of those countries and this is one of the pillars on which the European Union’s work is based. As you know, MEDA also includes a short- and medium-term action programme for the environment, which aims to reverse the current environmental deterioration in the area. Turning now to an analysis of the Commission’s proposal, I think the proposal as a whole is insufficient, partly because of the criticisms made about the implementation of this programme. The Commission principally defines three initiatives for achieving greater efficiency: on the one hand, making the decision-making process more dynamic, focussing the activity of the “MED Committee” on strategic planning and programming. The national and regional funding plans will be adopted annually on the basis of indicative programmes. It also proposes an increase in programming and implementation abilities, for which greater human resources must be provided. Lastly, the Commission intends to scale down procedures in order to achieve more effective implementation and increase the percentage of programmes that are implemented. Specifically, the intention is to develop common harmonised procedures for all aid programmes. Finally, I wish to say that I believe this report is important because anything that helps the countries to the south of us, in turn, helps us.

Political group: PPE-DE