Mr President, in congratulating Mr Martínez Martínez on his report I reiterate that our major achievement in the last twelve months has been to support the signing of the Cotonou Agreement, a huge restatement of Europe's commitment to development against a backcloth of globalisation and liberalisation elsewhere in international relations. Our task now is to act as the watchdog to ensure that those mutual commitments on trade and aid are fully realised. On trade, it remains a concern that the European Commission failed to get common agreement with our ACP partners in the run-up to the Seattle WTO meeting. The Commission failed to consult, through the joint EU-ACP trade committee laid down in Cotonou, in recent discussions on 'Everything but Arms', whilst the long-running problems over the banana regime remain unresolved. Trade access is the key to development for our ACP partners, just as it is the acid test for Europe's genuine commitment to put development first. On aid, it appears that the good principles for civil society participation have not yet been realised during the first programming exercise under Cotonou. The lack of mechanisms for civil society negotiations in some ACP countries poses real problems. The Commission, through its quality support group, we in the Joint Assembly, and not least the beneficiary governments should all uphold our responsibilities in this respect. This is not just an issue of support for non-governmental organisations; it is also about our support for the whole principle of good governance. On this question, there is much in the resolution to commend in relation to promoting the role of directly-elected parliamentarians within the Joint Assembly. But just as we often debate in this Chamber problems of abuse of human rights and of conflict, let us also give positive recognition to continuing moves towards peace and democracy in many African countries. This includes, for example, recent welcome moves to national dialogue by Joseph Kabila in the Congo, the democratic alternation of power in Cape Verde, the tentative maintenance of the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea and, as we saw for ourselves in the Joint Assembly last year, the entrenchment of democracy in post-Abacha Nigeria. Finally, on a lighter note, much of this may seem to be remote to Europe's citizens whose support is essential to our partnership with Africa. So it is with great pleasure that I tell you that in my own country – the UK – this Friday, a biannual awareness and fund-raising extravaganza for Africa, called Comic Relief, will see otherwise serious citizens don red plastic noses to raise cash and a laugh in solidarity with Africa. I, myself, will be serving quaint British cherry Bakewell tarts to users at the Suffolk Learning and Resource Centre in Bungay and will then go on to sell handshakes at 10p each to schoolchildren at the Highwood Infant School in King's Lynn, Norfolk. And yes, I will be donning a red plastic nose in common with everyone else. Not only should the European Parliament congratulate everyone involved, we should underline that through such creative public exercises our electors show us that they back the political commitment to development, embraced in our partnership with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and marked by tonight's debate.

Political group: PSE