WRITTEN QUESTION E-3137/00

by Francisca Sauquillo Pérez del Arco (PSE) to the Commission

(6 October 2000)

Subject: Committee on ALA developing countries standstill and shrinking cooperation with Latin America

Parliament is worried about a certain degree of scaling down in cooperation with Latin America, in view of the fact that many meetings of the Committee on ALA developing countries have been cancelled, and that it has met only twice this year, whereas last year it met every month, while measures already adopted by the committee have not been implemented, e.g. the funding of the Regional Reconstruction Programme for Central America.

Nor has the Commission submitted a report on the special aid to Venezuela requested in November 1999.

Can the Commission explain in detail the reasons why the Committee on ALA developing countries is not functioning properly?

Is the Commission aware of the undertaking given at the Berlin European Council that the geographical balance of Community external action would be maintained?

What are the reasons for not implementing the Regional Reconstruction Programme for Central America?

What are the Commission's prospects with regard to aid to Venezuela?

Can the Commission tell me in advance of publication what guidelines it sets out in its communication on the future of EU/Latin American relations from the year 2000?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(31 October 2000)

The Commission approved on an ambitious programme to reform external EU aid on 16 May. In accordance with Parliament's recommendations, an important part of the response to this issue will be to review the work of the committees involved in order to focus their activities on strategic programming rather than the micro-management of individual projects. While awaiting new committee procedures, the Commission is already endeavouring to ensure that projects are better prepared before being submitted to committees. Although this careful preparation is more time-consuming, it makes the subsequent management easier and reduces the risk of delays in implementation.

Nevertheless, comparing the project submission rate for Latin America for 2000 with that of 1999, an improvement can be seen in that in 1999 the first project was not submitted until September, while two were approved in June 2000, and another in September 2000. The other projects under the ALA programme for 2000 will be submitted for the Committee's opinion at the November and December meetings.

The Commission is naturally aware of the Berlin European Council's conclusions on the geographical balance of Community external operations and is using them as a basis for programming its operations. The Commission has also asked the General Affairs Council to debate the priorities for EU external operations. The debate, with which Parliament will be fully associated, will take place at the beginning of the year and will make budget preparation easier in future.

The first team of technical experts helping the Commission to implement the Regional Programme for the Reconstruction of Central America (PRRAC) has been working since mid-October 1999. In addition, the Commission identified all of the statutory personnel for the decentralised management structure of the PRRAC during the first half of 2000, despite the shortage of human resources imposed by the budgetary decision not to increase the recruitment of new manpower. The statutory personnel, local staff recruitment and the necessary logistics for their work will be in place by mid-October in the new building fitted out for the delegation in Managua.

Despite the constraints, however, a number of operations had either been carried out or were underway by then: the study and local preparation phases, publication in the Official Journal of the pre-information notice of contracts for some of the projects, and calls for proposals for local initiatives in the four countries coming under the programme.

Emergency aid worth 7,15 million overall was granted to carry out initial operations following the floods which struck vast areas of Venezuela in December 1999.

Immediately afterwards, the Commission asked the national government to submit a list of priority operations to rebuild the disaster areas. Due to the lack of an overall rebuilding plan, the Commission sent a team of experts to Venezuela in April to identify a package of clear priorities for action. The Commission adopted a Working Paper on Venezuela on 28 September: Programme to support regions affected by the floods of December 1999 on the basis of the agreement between the Commission delegation, embassies of the Member States and the national authorities, and the experts' findings. It states that the Commission plans to allocate 30 million to the rebuilding work in Venezuela are an indication of its commitment during the 2001 and 2002 financial years.

The programme is made up of two parts: a package of reconstruction aid in the state of Vargas, estimated at 10 million, (mainly operations to strengthen social policies for the benefit of the disaster victims) and a prevention package, estimated at 20 million, for the design and implementation of natural disaster management programmes over a large area of the states of Falcón, Miranda and Yaracuy (a detailed risk map, the setting-up of rapid warning systems, the production of land use plans, the construction of flood-control structures, etc.).

The guidelines laid down in the March 1999 communication from the Commission to the Council and Parliament towards a new European Union-Latin American partnership on the eve of the 21st century(1), were to a large extent confirmed by the Rio Summit and remain valid. In the coming weeks the Commission intends to adopt a new communication on the follow-up to the Rio Summit. It aims to define the general principles of the operations to be carried out by the Commission as its contribution to implementation of the priorities established by the Summit. It does not call existing cooperation or the continuation of a strategy recognising the specific characteristics of the sub-regions into question.

(1) COM(1999) 105 final.