Activites

• 2001/05/17 Final act published in Official Journal
• 2000/09/21 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0404/2000 summary

    In adopting its report, drafted by Concepcio FERRER (EPP-ED, E), the Parliament deplored the fact that the important objectives for EU aid , namely complementarity, coordination and consistency, are dealt with separately and not in a coherent fashion. It calls on the Council and Commission to step up their efforts to achieve complementarity and, in particular, to implement the various resolutions on this question adopted by the Council and the European Parliament. Parliament welcomes the fact that on the basis of pilot schemes conducted in several countries, the transmission of information and consultation on the ground appear to have improved in recent times, but considers, however, that the Member States should set up information exchanges and communication with the Commission in order to improve coordination between them and enable complementarity between the development policies of the Member States and the Community and significantly influence the international coordination mechanisms which include all donors. The EP calls on the Council and the Commission to amend the comitology system so as to concentrate Member States' participation during the planning stage, in order to ensure complementarity of planning and greater flexibility in the implementation of individual projects. Parliament supports the Commission's proposals on operational coordination and the management of the Union's human resources and stresses that an indispensable prerequisite for achieving greater complementarity is the devolution of decision-making powers, both within the EU and the Member States' development cooperation administrations; it asks the Commission to present, in the near future, its plans on how it intends to strengthen decentralisation. Parliament believes that, in order to enhance the effectiveness of Community aid, an increase is necessary in the Community staff responsible for managing development cooperation funds. The Commission is called upon to draw up as quickly as possible an operational action plan to identify and propose priority action areas and instruments to make it possible to speed up the introduction of complementarity. It should also draw up an overall text addressing the issues of complementarity, consistency and coordiantion, in order to strengthen Community and bilateral development policy across the board within the EU and thus give it a higher profile. The Council and Commission are called upon to take into account the existence of NGOs, particularly NGDOs, and to support and encourage their participation in Community and Member State bodies working to achieve coordination. The Parliament regrets that, as in other areas of development policy, the Commission does not have sufficient resources to carry out the necessary studies and analyses, and was therefore obliged to use work produced by other bodies, whose political and social sensibilities differ from those of the EU. It therefore calls for the Commission's capacities to be sufficiently enhanced in this area. It also deplores the fact that the Commission has not carried out an assessment of coordination in international organisation and calls for a study to be conducted into the real opportunities for coordination between the Commission and the Member States in international organisations and conferences with a view to increasing the complementarity and efficiency of thesefora. The EP urges that the standard framework drawn up by the Commission for national strategy papers for each Community country should be implemented as soon as possible. Lastly, Parliament calls on the Commission and member States to coordinate their external services so as to ensure that complementarity is effective on the ground.�

• 2000/09/20 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2000/09/12 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0227/2000
• 1999/10/07 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• #2180
• 1999/05/21 Council Meeting
• 1999/05/06 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(1999)0218 summary

    PURPOSE : to increase complementarity between Member States' aid and Community aid. CONTENT : the communication refers, first of all, to the main objectives of complementarity, namely: improving the impact of European aid through optimum use of the EU's human and financial resources, and through Community providing "value added" in relation to Member States' bilateral aid. The communication then describes the main conditions for ensuring greater complementarity: strong political will, operational co-ordination mechanisms, and a development strategy of the recipient country itself, which together will help ensure that Community aid is defined and targeted with reference to Member State aid. The communication goes on to describe the main forms of complementarity at operational level and in the management of human resources and implementing methods: apportioning sectors and/or targeting, comparative advantages and areas where the Community has its own value added. Furthermore, new initiatives are proposed : - in the short term, there are: systematic exchange and joint analysis of existing documents on strategies for supporting beneficiary countries, reflection on the re-definition of the roles of existing committees, simplification and harmonisation of procedures, strengthening of links between headquarters and links at the field level. It is proposed that Member States who so wish be associated with annual reviews of the Community programmes of aid to the ACP countries. - in the medium term, the Commission and the Member States must help the beneficiary countries to draw up their own national strategy documents, and this should mean that the Community support strategies will reflect the Member States' priorities and the Community's at the same time. It is intended that this process should lead gradually to the drawing-up of truly European strategies.�

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(1999)0218
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A5-0227/2000
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0404/2000

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)