Mr President, the rules which regulate cooperation between the Union and the countries of Asia and Latin America date from ten years ago. In ten years, there have been certain changes in the world. In Asia, certain countries have made progress in terms of consolidating their democracies and their development has been given momentum. Unfortunately, in other Asian countries, the situation has deteriorated in all areas of political, economic and social activity. In Latin America, following a decade of democratic progress, the 1980s, and another decade of economic reforms, the societies of all countries, with certain notable exceptions, are experiencing a profound economic and social crisis. In both regions the fight against poverty has not only failed to achieve any notable success, but rather, on the contrary, in Bangladesh and in Haiti, in Afghanistan and in Bolivia, poverty is engulfing more and more social groups. In some cities now tragically renowned for their precariousness, such as Calcutta, there is no room for optimism, but in others, such as in Tucumán, in Argentina no less, poverty and hunger – chronic hunger amongst children – are things we have never seen until now. We therefore believe to be timely, and we welcome, the proposal the Commission is making with this Regulation, which amends and updates those which have been in force up until now. This Parliament, in paragraph 61 of its resolution of 15 November 2001, declared itself in favour of a separation of the Commission’s initial proposal, one applicable to Asia and another to Latin America. This our only objection to the proposal we are debating today, which is no small objective certainly, but I would like to stress that in terms of the fundamentals of the issue we support the Commission’s proposal. We agree with the objectives which take up our commitment to the fight to eradicate poverty, not only in terms of the financing and co-financing of projects to promote development, but prioritising education, health and strengthening civil society in order to strengthen democracy, transparency and good governance, without which democracy will not be strengthened and the desired development will not achieve its objectives. We agree with the financial framework, with the increasingly prominent role given to the countries receiving our cooperation, as well as the steps being taken in the process of decoupling aid in the manner intended by recently approved directives. All of this is what we wish to achieve through our amendments. We disagree on a formal question which we cannot abandon out of coherence with our philosophy and our view of a European policy for such priority areas as Asia and Latin America. It is not a question of political prestige, Mr Patten, nor of prioritising one region over another, as one of our fellow Members has said during this sitting. Throughout these long months of parliamentary negotiation we have held talks with numerous governments involved, with their ambassadors here in Brussels, and with many, many NGOs which work both in Asia and Latin America. All of them, I repeat, all of them, without exception, without a single exception, have said that they prefer two regulations: one for Asia and another for Latin America. If we say, and the Commission also says, that we want to adopt the principle of co-participation in our cooperation from the moment programmes are established and not just in the management and implementation phase of a project, it does not appear coherent now to do the opposite. Today, tomorrow with the vote, a codecision procedure can begin in which Parliament does not wish to, and cannot, renounce its prerogatives and in which we believe there is margin for negotiation with the Council. I will end by congratulating the rapporteur, my colleague and friend Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, who has worked very well, who has tried everything, who has done so very well and I thank you, Mr Patten, for your willingness to hold the dialogue in which I hope we will be able to continue to make progress in the coming months. IN THE CHAIR: MR VIDAL-QUADRAS ROCAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE