MEDA funding still held up by divisions

Date: 18/04/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

ATHENS is continuing to block a 900-million-ecu EU development package promised to the North African and Middle Eastern countries along the Mediterranean Sea because it contains money for Turkey.

Numerous other obstacles to the MEDA fund have finally been overcome, but Greek opposition is still holding up the programme.

“There will be a solution to the issue as soon as Turkey takes recourse to the international court in the Hague,” said a Greek diplomat. “Until then, we will be blocking funding to Turkey both in MEDA and in the financial regulation (attached to Turkey's customs union with the EU).”

The European Commission, tasked with allocating MEDA funds, has not yet revealed what portion of the programme is destined for Turkey.

It is refusing to reveal its plans for dividing the money among recipients, insisting it will wait for ministers to approve the overall funding package - still blocked four months after it was originally due to be put in the pipeline to recipient nations.

Foreign ministers are expected to tackle the issue when they meet in Luxembourg next week (22-23 April).

Approval of the MEDA fund has also been held up by UK opposition to a clause which would allow a majority of EU member states to suspend funding if a recipient violated human rights. London maintained that such a move would be a foreign policy decision and would therefore require unanimous agreement.

After a series of complicated compromises were bandied about, the whole question has been pushed under the table, with EU governments agreeing to put the question to the Intergovernmental Conference rather than setting a policy now which might be used for other aid programmes.

London and Bonn are both anxious to take the unanimity/majority vote debate to the IGC, but for different ends. The UK wants to cement the current consensus requirement for initiatives with non-EU countries, while Germany wants to extend majority voting.

For now, the MEDA regulation will cite no specific reasons in the clause which allows aid to be suspended. “The preamble says one of its aims is to promote human rights, but there is nothing said about how to uphold that general principle,” said an EU diplomat.

A third hurdle, presented by calls from the European Parliament for MEPs to be consulted on aid suspensions, has also helped stall progress, but has been largely dismissed by member states.