Mr President, the MEDA programme is a crucial instrument for enabling us gradually to establish a genuine area of shared prosperity, as stated in the Barcelona Declaration. The difficulties in setting it up, the impatience and even the disappointments it has caused our southern partners should nevertheless encourage us to look more deeply into the state of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership as a whole. The southern Mediterranean countries need European aid, aid that demonstrates solidarity and which contributes to the development of their society. This aid must also reduce the disparities between the two sides of the Mediterranean, by putting an end to the existing relationship of economic domination, the most obvious and most unfair example of which is perhaps the system maintaining national debt. What role does MEDA have to play in this? With more than EUR 3 billion in commitment appropriations for 1995-1999, MEDA I actually committed just over EUR 2 billion in its first four years and actually paid out EUR 553 million, or scarcely a quarter of the credits committed. What a discrepancy between the aid promised and the aid actually provided! This discrepancy is largely due to the fact that, as Mr Patten has often told us, the Commission lacks the human resources to deal with all the tasks that are assigned to it. I am sure that I will not be the last person to call for further human resources if that will enable the European Union to shoulder its responsibilities. The Commission proposals, moreover, are aimed at simplifying and speeding up procedures under the new regulation, even though removing from the outset individual States’ ability to supervise projects would not necessarily be the best solution to achieve greater transparency. More credit should be provided for smaller-scale projects. Too frequently I meet people who have extensive experience of the local association movement, who feel let down by the procedures they have to follow in order to receive subsidies. The Euro-Mediterranean partnership can only really be built by and for the general public, who themselves wish to achieve a partnership that is of real benefit to all citizens. The MEDA programme also raises fundamental questions about our Euro-Mediterranean policy in general. First and foremost, cooperation is concentrated essentially in the economic and financial dimensions and marginalises the social and cultural dimensions. It is also time that we took greater account of the growing dissatisfaction with the practices of out-and-out free trade. The social consequences we are seeing in the free trade area are cause for deep concerns, which cannot be ignored. The social budgets of southern countries risk seeing the budgetary resources raised from customs duties cut to a dangerous level. The growth in competition could eat away at the industrial fabric of these countries, which in some cases consists of vulnerable small and medium-sized enterprises. Rather than so-called ‘accompanying’ measures, the economic systems in the South need real technological support. The purpose of aid, furthermore, should be not only to convert businesses to comply with the criteria of profitability, but also to respond to the employment needs of the population. While private sector development is heavily supported by MEDA, the public sector is largely forgotten, even though it responds to genuine needs. To conclude, I should like to concentrate on two aspects of the reports which I support: really encouraging the participation... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: GUE-NGL