Mr President, with this report on the regulation on the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests and other types of forest in developing countries, and with the previous report by Mr Wijkman, Parliament is reaching the high point today, with the corresponding vote tomorrow, of its first exercise of its new codecision competences in the field of cooperation and development. It has taken the procedure a long time to come to an end, since we have spent almost three years on the first and second readings and on the debate in conciliation. As rapporteur, I would like to express my satisfaction that such a long period has been fruitful and has enabled us to reach an agreement on the text of the regulation which I am today asking Parliament to vote in favour of. We started from very different positions. Basically, the differences between Parliament and the Council concerned the budgetary funding of the programme, the timetable and commitology. Parliament had proposed, in previous stages of the procedure, numerous amendments which the Council and the Commission have accepted and I must say – it is fair to recognise this – that the Commission’s management of the previous programme, its high level of execution and its good results, have meant that the rapporteur, with the support of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, has been able to persuade the Council of the need to maintain the programme with a sufficient degree of funding to guarantee its success. The tropical forests and their various functions and usefulness to humanity can contribute to a large extent to the achievement of the Union’s aims, not only in terms of development and the environment, but also with regard to its objectives of fighting poverty and sustainable economic and social development. With the regulation, the European Union provides appropriate financial and technical aid with a view to promoting conservation and the sustainable management of tropical forests and other types of forest in developing countries, so that the forests may play their role as generators of wealth and social development with the sustainable environmental criteria which is expected of them at local, national and international levels. The regulation says that the sustainable management of the forests must seek to improve the living conditions and well-being of the populations within the limits of the capacity of the ecosystems, maintaining the natural heritage and its biological diversity. This must be done by promoting the active participation of the populations which depend on the forests and the local communities in the creation of policies and planning in the field of development. To this end, it is necessary to improve coordination and the flow of information between Commission projects – those that the Commission will present in the coming years – and those of the Member States, in order to achieve more coherent actions and therefore a more efficient use of resources. In terms of the budget, we should be pleased that, after the restrictions which, in general, have resulted from the plans for reconstruction in Kosovo, we now have a contribution of EUR 249 million, having started with an initial Council proposal of EUR 9 million, for a period of 6 years, from now until 2006. This will provide sufficient funding to fulfil the objectives, at least with the same efficiency with which they have been fulfilled during the period which is coming to an end now. Nevertheless, in the field of commitology the differing positions of Parliament, especially the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and the Council are well known. Our position is more inclined towards giving greater competences to the Commission in this area. We have not managed to reach an agreement, since this agreement is waiting for the problem to be dealt with globally. However, at least the Committee on Development and Cooperation can feel satisfied because, on this question of commitology, an agreement has been reached which will allow us to establish the necessary budgetary estimates and a precise timetable for maintaining up-to-date information on the strategic guidelines and the priorities for implementing actions for the coming years. To sum up, Mr President, this is a sound agreement for a sound programme for the conservation of the tropical forests.

Political group: PPE-DE