1 March Development Council informal

Date: 06/03/1997

EU DEVELOPMENT ministers called for more coherence in the Union's foreign policy, arguing that many of its development aims were cancelled out by agriculture and fisheries strategies. They added that as the CAP was being reformed, this was a perfect time to build mechanisms into it to respect developing countries and their needs. Ministers also said that the Union's external fisheries policy needed to be more sensitive to development. The possibility of joint councils between development ministers and their counterparts in other fields was floated by the presidency. Dutch Minister Jan Pronk promised to circulate a discussion paper in time for the June Development Council.

MINISTERS were privately debriefed by Aldo Ajello, the EU's representative to the African Great Lakes, especially on the situation in Zaïre. They discussed sending a multilateral force to the country, but preferred a political solution. Pronk expressed regret that foreign affairs ministers had decided not to send a troika of development ministers to the region, but announced that he would make a visit this week in a bilateral capacity.

THE meeting agreed that a 'conflict prevention' clause should be included in all the Union's development policies, stressing the need for a secure political environment to ensure sustainable economic growth. Mechanisms should be set up to monitor potential instability, acting as an early warning system to alert the EU to the potential outbreak of conflicts. Ministers stressed the importance of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) and other international institutions in averting war, and the necessity of Union support for their work.

AS THE United Nations underwent a critical period of internal reform, ministers noted that the organisation needed to coordinate better the work of its constituent agencies, such as UNCTAD and the UNHCR. “In some countries you can find different UN delegates pulling in different directions,” said a spokesman for Development Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro. Ministers also called for a more coherent approach by the EU countries in UN fora, but the issue of permanent seats on the security council was not broached.

MINISTERS discussed the future of EU relations with its African, Caribbean and Pacific partners, but came to no conclusions. Most delegations were still undecided on what a new Lomé Convention should look like. The most difficult issues are likely to be geographical (should the ACP remain a single unit?), and trade-linked, given the growing stature of the World Trade Organisation and free markets. All agreed that time was of the essence and that development should become a priority in the EU's external relations policies. Otherwise, the Union would suffer the consequences both politically and economically.