Patten plays his part in boosting the EU’s standing by tackling aid delays

Date: 05/10/00

WHEN External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten took office last September, one of his priorities was to address the enormous backlog of funds in EU coffers which had never been paid out because of bureaucratic delays.

Patten quickly realised that unless the Union could demonstrate that its pledges of support to other parts of the world could be turned into beneficial projects, its standing on the world stage would never amount to much. "It is the most conspicuous thing we do and it is the most visible thing we do," explains one official.

While the scale of the problem has been acknowledged for some time, the political will to tackle it was lacking until Patten arrived. "It needed someone to realise it was politically important enough to sort it out," says another. "A lot of other Commissioners would have seen it as beneath them."

Confronted with a backlog totalling more than €11 billion, officials managed to eliminate around half of the outstanding payments partly by scrapping projects which were past their sell-by date. Cumbersome administrative procedures were streamlined so that the number of signatures needed to approve funding for a scheme was cut by more than half.

Together with the EU's High Representative for foreign policy, Javier Solana, Patten is also charged with ensuring more effective co-ordination of the Union's foreign policy initiatives in general and in the Balkans in particular.

Despite being the largest financial donor to the region and the biggest provider of peacekeeping troops, the EU failed to get the recognition it deserved for the efforts it was making. To cite just one example, while the Union provides most of the aid for elections in Bosnia and Kosovo, it is the logo of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which appears on ballot papers.

But now, thanks to separate efforts to streamline project management on the ground, the EU is beginning to win praise from humanitarian aid organisations for its role in building a civil administration in Kosovo, and in particular the management of the finance ministry and aid agency.

Increasingly, there are also signs that the Union is managing to get its key message across to the countries of the region that they will be rewarded for their efforts to adopt European democratic values and market-orientated economies.

The main catalyst for this appears to have been the Stability and Association Agreements, conceived amid the embers of the Kosovo campaign. After five years of trying to encourage Balkan states to meet the EU's expectations, these accords - which offer a valuable trade relationship and improved political links - have encouraged governments in the region to embark on essential reforms.

Croatia is the shining example after turning its back on the strident nationalism of President Franjo Tudjman. Zagreb is expected to start negotiations on an agreement in time for next month's EU-Western Balkans summit. Negotiations with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) could be concluded by then, and diplomats believe that the prospect of an accord is finally convincing Albania to modernise its economy and open up to trade.

The big test remains whether the Serbian people will be able to take up the offers of an end to sanctions and 1.8 billion euro in reconstruction aid by getting rid of Milosevic.

But on the broader question of the effectiveness of EU foreign policy, there appears to be a greater unity of purpose among foreign ministers about priorities and ensuring that pledges of political support are turned into reality.

The recent decision to offer duty-free access to almost all imports of farm and industrial goods from the Balkans, without winning any substantial concessions on sensitive products, showed that ministers could put political goals first.

To tackle the lack of visibility of EU aid projects, Patten - together with Development Commissioner Poul Nielson - has launched a plan to rebrand all Union assistance under the 'EuropeAid' logo so that the EU's activities have a higher public profile.

The coming weeks will also show whether ministers can fulfil the commitment they made at last month's informal meeting in Evian to improve co-ordination of foreign policy actions. They have, for example, pledged to draw up country reports setting out the combined efforts of the Union and individual member states in a particular region. Another key development will be an annual debate on political priorities at the start of the budget-fixing process to ensure that the most important regions get the funding they need at the right time.

These may seem like small steps, but they are signs that the Union is genuinely thinking about how a common foreign policy should work.