Mr President, I feel that this debate is particularly timely and appropriate, not just because development is in general an important issue, but because it is also a topical one. Seattle was a failure, and north-south relations were in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The meeting held in that North American city demonstrated that globalisation is having seriously unbalanced and negative effects on poorer countries. The Tenth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is being held right now in Bangkok, and is suffering the consequences of that failure. In the meantime, however, as has already been mentioned, the negotiations on the future of the Lomé Convention have been concluded. This goes to show just how topical this subject is. We could also add to the list the next EU-OAU summit which it has finally been agreed to hold in Cairo in April. However, I would also like to add that any analysis, no matter how superficial, inevitably leads us to the conclusion that something – or even a great deal – is amiss with north-south relations, including those between the European Union and the less developed countries. You only have to realise that the category of “least developed countries” has grown from 25 to 48 countries over the last 30 years, and now represents 13% of the world’s population, yet this category only accounts for 0.4% of world exports and 0.6% of world imports or be aware of the unfortunate fact that official development aid from rich countries has fallen by around 23% since 1990. Furthermore, the recent Community budget cuts in this area, for the present financial year, are part of this trend, as well as sending an undesirable and misguided political message. Michel Camdessus, a fair man who is still director of the International Monetary Fund, said in his speech at the opening of the UNCTAD conference, and I am now quoting, that the international community gives with one hand and takes away with the other. He was of course talking about the aid granted by developed countries to less developed countries. It may seem ironic that this statement should come from someone in his position, but he did indeed say this, and I heard it with my own ears. This comment certainly seems to me to reflect the current situation, and I accordingly wish to stress that it is vital to rethink north-south relations and break the mould. In particular, we need to reconsider the role of the European Union in this area, as I am certain that one of the Union’s strategic objectives must be to promote a new and more equitable world order. It is therefore essential to review the present process of globalisation, bearing in mind the underlying approach and dominant interests on which it is based, and to consider the enormous and damaging effect that it is having on the less developed countries, particularly in this context. A new agreement has been reached with the ACP countries. This is a positive development in itself, especially given the pressures to terminate it and the fact that various Member States did not wish it to continue. We will have an opportunity in due course to consider the exact terms of this agreement in greater depth, but meanwhile there is no doubt that the European negotiators were more timid and failed to live up to the proposals that we formulated at the appropriate time, even if the new agreement does include some new and innovative points. Certain politically important aspects of the new partnership agreement will have contributed to these. This was without a doubt the result of a complex negotiating process in which both parties made major concessions, and this is certainly true of the European Union, especially in the field of good governance and trade. But it was above all the result of a stronger ACP group, which obviously found new courage following the events in Seattle. I particularly wish to stress that a new way of looking at these issues seems to be emerging, especially as regards trade, and it is certainly necessary to tackle this area. Lastly, we need to go further in our development aid policies towards developing countries. I have in mind budgetary and financing aspects, indebtedness, assistance in sensitive areas such as food safety, humanitarian, educational and health-related issues, and also fields such as the environment, investment and access to information and new technologies. This also applies to the sphere of trade, where we need to ensure real coherence between development policies and other Community policies, and also between both types of policy and corresponding policies originating in the Member States. We cannot simply forge ahead with something that in the past has shown itself to be inappropriate and wrong-headed. IN THE CHAIR: MR MARINHOVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL