Mr President, I thought, since I represent the Bordeaux area, that you were giving me the floor so that I could answer my Bavarian colleague on the subject of Bordeaux wine. However, it seems that you are asking me to speak on Tajikistan instead and, as I have five minutes, I shall try to be as clear as possible about an issue that is perhaps rather esoteric and complicated. It concerns exceptional aid to Tajikistan which is, as you know, a small country located between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and Afghanistan. There is a history to this issue and really what I would like to do today is to close a subject that began in 1991 with a loan of EUR 1200 million to the Newly Independent States when the Soviet Union collapsed. The loan has been repaid by all of the States apart from three. In 1997, three States were experiencing difficulties and were seriously behind in their repayments: Georgia, Armenia and Tajikistan. Thus the Parliament was informed in 1997 of a proposal by the Commission, which aimed to reschedule and restructure these three countries’ debts. It was therefore decided to put in place two types of financial assistance. On the one hand there would be loans – at the time EUR 245 million had been earmarked for loans to these three countries – and on the other hand, a gift of EUR 130 million, whose main objective was to reduce the burden of debt and to improve the ability of these countries to repay. 1997 was also marked, and this is the crux of the issue, by a civil war in Tajikistan, a terrible civil war between the reigning power and the Islamic opposition. Parliament then proposed, on the basis of Mr Kittelmann’s report, to defer aid to Tajikistan and that is why, two years later, now that the situation has returned to normal, we are being asked today to reopen the matter. In fact, although the situation in Tajikistan has remained highly critical and worrying, in terms of politics as well as economics, it has gradually become more stable. There has been an agreement between the different parties, which has been implemented and universally respected, even if security in the country is still subject to caution due to the presence of warlords and the powerful wave of Wahabi fundamentalism in Afghanistan. In terms of economics, the country has made great efforts under the auspices of the IMF and is benefiting from a structural adjustment facility provided by that organisation. We, the European Union, are therefore being asked to re-establish contact with Tajikistan and to implement a restructuring of the debt as today, around EUR 73 million is still outstanding. What the Commission is proposing is actually to repeat what was done for Georgia and Armenia, which was to make provision for a new loan which would enable Tajikistan to repay the previous one but on much more favourable terms in order to give this country some breathing space, and to make provision for a gift of EUR 35 million for the period 2000-2004, in order to reduce the burden of debt. Unfortunately, I have to say that the Commission’s proposal is extremely contradictory. We are in fact being asked to make a loan of EUR 75 million and a gift of EUR 35 million and now we see that no more budgetary funds are available for donations and that, in 1999, we only budgeted for the donations granted to Armenia and Georgia, donations which are due to end in 2001. As a result and quite logically, we, the Committee on Industry, within whose competence this matter essentially falls, have been told by the Committee on Budgets that under no circumstances could we endorse donations which have not been budgeted for today and which have not been provided for in the financial perspective, particularly in Category 4, which, as you know, is already under pressure through trying to finance Kosovo. Therefore, the compromise which we have reached with the Committee on Budgets consists effectively of only keeping the loan of EUR 75 million whilst agreeing – a position of the Committee on Industry which I think has been understood by the Committee on Budgets – that Tajikistan should also be able to benefit from supplementary aid in order to reduce the monthly debt repayment of EUR 200 000 which it cannot afford. Tajikistan is, in fact, the poorest of the Newly Independent States and the one that we absolutely have to stabilise because, rather like Chechnya and for other reasons besides, it is a country that could endanger the whole region, particularly because of its strategic position with regard to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which are very rich countries. We have consequently tabled a series of amendments. Firstly, amendments that endorse the donation; then amendments which point out to the Council and the Commission their contradictions by telling them that it would be desirable to grant direct aid, but by financing it under another line, and here I am thinking of TACIS; and finally, amendments concerning conditions: monitoring the way the funds are used, the political and democratic conditions and the monitoring of the Parliament.

Political group: PSE