Mr President, I had hoped to be rising at 9 a.m., not 9 p.m., to present this report. I hope the number of Members in this Chamber is not an indication of the interest in overseas development work. However, it is normal practice that the report on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly is put before Members of this Parliament and I have the pleasant task of doing that tonight. Once again, I can report two highly successful Assemblies having taken place, one in Strasbourg and one in Nassau. In many ways this was the end of an old era and the start of a new one. The ACP-EU Joint Assembly is a unique organisation in world politics. Where else do 86 nations come together to discuss matters of mutual concern? The Strasbourg Assembly was the last chaired by Lord Plumb. In honour of the tremendous work he carried out over a difficult period the Joint Bureau in Nassau made him an honorary president, and we wish him well in his retirement. The two Assemblies have been dominated by the negotiations on renewal of the Lomé Convention and I look forward to the signature of a new Convention and its rapid ratification by all the countries concerned. I remember that at the last mid-term review, when I was rapporteur, the then Commissioner Marin said that review would be the last. Well, he was wrong, and I pay tribute to Philip Lowe and his team who have worked so successfully behind the scenes to conclude a new Convention in very difficult circumstances. I was also delighted to hear the report this morning from Commissioner Nielson who has worked untiringly to get the right outcome to the negotiations. I pay special tribute to him for his success. I also pay tribute to Mrs Kinnock and her working group for the huge amount of work they put in on the future of Lomé. I am quite sure that Mrs Kinnock’s report and the one on regional cooperation and integration had a major bearing on the outcome of these negotiations. I also thank the Working Groups on the small island states and climate change and the Follow-up Group on Fisheries for their excellent reports. We have had question times to the Council and the Commission and to the ACP Council, and I would like to thank those institutions for their interest in our work. The main thrust of our work in both Assemblies was poverty eradication. The resolution passed went so far as to say that poverty amounted to a violation of human rights. It also emphasised the importance of abolishing gender inequalities and as I travel through Africa and see the work done by women I only wish there were more women in senior government positions and in presidential posts. We might then see an end to some of the fraud, corruption and mismanagement that seem endemic in some countries and that have to be stopped. We had, as usual, many debates on countries where there are war situations. I visited Ethiopia and Eritrea to gain first-hand knowledge. The OAU is doing its best to broker a peace deal there. But Ethiopia is still calling for clarification on certain issues and the humanitarian situation in both countries is serious. We were delighted to hear in Nassau that a trade agreement was being reached with South Africa after four years of negotiations. This highlights the problems of coherence between the EU and the developing nations, which came to a head at the WTO talks in Seattle. Much work has to be done to convince the developing nations of the advantages of globalisation and world free-trade agreements. In Nassau, we had two interesting debates on East Timor and Cuba. Cuba has observer status but I understand has now shown a wish to join the ACP. All nations from within the confines of the ACP territory who can live up to the requirements of democracy, human rights, governance and an independent judiciary are, I am sure, welcome. I await with interest developments in Cuba. When Mr Dalmau, the Cuban Junior Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed the Assembly, he did not hesitate to let his feelings be known. On East Timor, Mr Da Costa, from the Timorese National Resistance Council, gave a very moving address indicating that East Timor would also like to join the ACP when it becomes a state with a government. We must give them all our support to reach that goal. Human rights is such an important issue within the ACP-EU Assembly that Joint Vice-Presidents have been appointed with special responsibilities for monitoring human rights closely and reporting to the Assembly. A number of cases have been highlighted, including the child soldier issue in Sudan, where many children have been abducted from neighbouring states. I had the honour of being elected the European Co-President at the beginning of this fifth term and Mr Clair from Mauritius is the new ACP Co-President. I would like to see a number of changes to our Assembly, particularly after the signing of the new Convention in May. We must have more equality between our ACP partners and our European members and I want to get rid of the “them and us” syndrome. Firstly, I would like to see a Joint Parliamentary Assembly of elected members from ACP countries and not ambassadors or government ministers sitting there as delegates. This I think is the new Convention. Secondly, the new Convention allows for regional assemblies in the six regions, which would allow us to be much more specific in our work. These assemblies would report back to the Joint Assembly. We had a regional debate in Nassau in the Caribbean and this was extremely productive. We are going to have one in Abuja in West Africa too. I want the Assembly to stop being just a talk-shop and become a work-shop for the betterment of all the people in developing countries. I want to see civil society given a louder voice. But to do that we have to see an end to corruption and we have to face this head-on. We must reward those nations which are making the effort to live by the rules of good governance. Equally, we should come down hard on those who are corrupt or whose constitutions do not allow the pluralist governments that we demand. I am delighted to see the result in Zimbabwe. European taxpayers will no longer accept their taxes being fraudulently used. A new wind of change must blow through Africa and new standards must be set and lived up to. The Joint Assembly should play a leading role in monitoring the enactment of good governance, human rights and democracy in cooperation with the Commission. I believe that as equal partners the EU– and ACP-elected delegates are up to that task. I beg to move acceptance of this report. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE