Proposition 50K2098

Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'Accord de partenariat entre les Membres du Groupe des Etats d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique, d'une part, et la Communauté européenne et ses Etats membres, d'autre part, et aux Annexes I, II, III, IV, V et VI, signés à Cotonou le 23 juin 2000.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Sept. 5, 2002

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

ACP-EU Convention international agreement agreement (EU) cooperation agreement

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen Vooruit Ecolo PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

FN

Party dissidents ¶

• Vincent Decroly (Ecolo) voted to reject.
• Zoé Genot (Ecolo) abstained from voting.
• Karine Lalieux (PS | SP) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 21, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, the agreements of Lomé seemed to me important enough to communicate to the whole plenary session what is stated in the report. The representative of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs has emphasized — which is important not only for that treaty, but for many — that the partnership agreement referred to in the draft law on consent is a follow-up to the Lomé agreements. What is especially important is the following sentence: "... Because of its complex state structure, Belgium is among the last European countries that have not yet ratified the agreement.

Meanwhile, the committee was also sent an explanatory note containing the novelty compared to the previous agreement, the Lomé Agreement. We are talking about Cotonou.

Claudine Drion, on behalf of Agalev-Ecolo, took the position that she is pleased that the civil society in that agreement is now recognised as an active participant in the partnership. The representatives will not only be able to participate in the dialogue on the development strategy and policy, but they will also be involved in the implementation of the programmes. Thus, they will be able to directly resort to the fund that was previously open only to states and decentralized entities, in accordance with the previous Lomé Agreement.

The fact that an agreement was reached with the ACP countries is already a victory in itself. Nevertheless, the speaker regrets some novelty. The underlying ideas of Lomé were sovereignty and equality of the partner. They now have to make room for a purely economic agreement, which ⁇ does not benefit the countries of the South. That curve is a reflection of the mentality that prevails widely in other international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, for which free trade and a general macroeconomic balance are at the forefront. The Cotonou Agreement threatens to exacerbate this trend. The conditions included in the agreement are based in particular on performance criteria that will determine the amount of aid that will be received by the ACP countries. These criteria are not defined. So we may fear that the required performance will be of a macro-economic nature.

Therefore, the speaker — and I with her — wants to take account of achievements in the field of human rights, environment and sustainable development. These are indeed included as a concept in the agreements, but not in the elaboration. As stated above, the Cotounou Agreement will thus enter the World Trade Organization’s pitch and open the door for a trade liberalization. It also deviates from the non-reciprocal trade relations system. Think of the discussion that has been held for months about the importation of bananas from ACP countries. We also think of arrangements in which price guarantees for raw materials apply in favor of the free trade zone between the European Union and the regional economic and commercial entities within those countries.

Those regional economic partnership agreements will therefore be negotiated between the European Union and the governments of those countries in the coming years. This is telkenmale an opportunity to forward the case. Therefore, the AgalevEcolo Group urges that representatives of civil society in both the North and the South be involved in these negotiations.

Furthermore, the speaker fears that the Cotounou Agreement will lead to a privatization of public services in the long run. The agreement refers to the general agreement on trade in services.

In the same context, the reference to the Agreement on the Commercial Aspects of Intellectual Property also involves risks. This may lead to the authorisation of patents on living beings. As a result, we could take away all the power of the ACP countries to decide themselves how to exploit their territory, and we threaten to displace the local culture, more specifically the medicine according to the ancient practices.

The representative of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs responded that he would take note of these considerations. The entire draft was unanimously adopted in the committee.

I would like to add to myself that the signing of those agreements — and there are ⁇ many positive things in them — has been the result of months of negotiations. During our Belgian Presidency, these are closed with the signing of the agreements by the Secretary of State, Mr. Boutmans.

Mrs. Laenens, I have to point out that in your report you have said things that are not included. That is your own position. As a journalist, you have done your job. However, you have – that is your right – also taken positions that were not discussed in the report. I read the report carefully. That is your position as a member of the Chamber and a member of your group. That is no problem. However, I would like to note this.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, in order to prepare my speech before you today, I plunged into the recent archives of our parliamentary assemblies. The majority of the so-called rainbow arc had placed on the fronton (Brouhaha)

There is a lot of noise, Mr. President.

I know, Mr. Decroly, but if I could keep them silent one after the other, I would have a power that I do not have! Dear colleagues, if you want to speak, it is not forbidden, but do it elsewhere than in this homecycle! Please continue, Mr Decroly.

Thank you Mr. President. I was therefore saying that the so-called rainbow majority started on the wheel hats by the establishment, for example — we talked about it even a moment ago — of a committee for political renewal that has dramatically collapsed, but also by quite positive and interesting statements on the revaluation of the control of the parliament and its activity in the three or four years of its legislature. Now, on a project of this nature, when we see what activities our committees and plenary parliamentary assemblies can witness, I cannot help but be ⁇ concerned about the future of a parliamentarism worthy of this name in our country.

The first observation. I read, Madame Laenens, your report, in all its thickness, as well as the report of our colleague from the Senate. If we remove the title and the usual elements of presentation of the document, the debate of our colleagues in the Senate, the specialized assembly on foreign affairs, is reduced to the blue-shared area, or nine lines! Nine lines, dear colleagues, for the adoption of an international agreement that does not, neither more nor less, but radically dismantle 40 years of international cooperation and solidarity between the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and the Member States of the European Union.

The second point is about the working method. I am surprised that — even though I obviously have no personal problem with Mr. Reynders and Mr. Verwilghen — the Secretary of State for Cooperation and Development is not among us today. This is one of the major issues that we vote in this legislature on development cooperation! Where is Mr. The Boutmans? I want to believe that mr. Michel is probably in Prague — though I’m not sure it’s for the best causes — but the Secretary of State for Cooperation and Development, where is he today? This concerns the very first leader, Mrs. Gerkens, Mr. Wauters.

Two speeches in the plenary session of the Senate, it is very little to finally comment on a cooperation agreement between 77 ACP countries and 15 member states of the European Communities, which will succeed the Lomé IV Convention.

What is the content of this agreement in essence? Ladies and gentlemen... I think I will have to stop here, Mr. President.

Mr. Decroly, that's why I didn't connect the seats to the laptop: I would have had the silence because they would all be behind their screen! Now they don’t have a screen to hide. I’d rather be listening or going out. It is a matter of basic politeness, regardless of who speaks! Do not forget that the world is watching you. The cameras are all around you and you are yourself on the Internet all the time! If you want to talk, leave the room. If it doesn’t interest you, it doesn’t bother me either, but if you stay, make an effort of politeness and civilisation!

Compliance with WTO requirements of cooperation between the European Union and ACP countries is at the forefront of the concerns that cross the whole of this Cotonou Agreement. It is here again and again, and more and more, compliance with the structural adjustment programmes implemented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, structural adjustment programmes of which we know all the damage in terms of social policy, education policy and health policy, ⁇ in developing countries.

The Cotonou Agreement is also the child of the Marrakech Agreements as some of us, two or three years ago, when they were in the opposition — the environmentalists, Mrs. Gerkens, Mr. Wauters — had radically contested and against whom they had voted. by

The Cotonou Agreement also provides, and it is another element of radical break with all those that preceded it, the establishment of mechanisms ensuring the stability of export revenues in agricultural matters or in terms of exploitation of the basements, mechanisms that allowed yesterday developing countries to protect their economies from shocks of the international market economy.

I come to the third unfortunately strong element of this Cotonou Agreement. The conditionality of aid is strengthened and, in particular, the possibility of abolishing or suspending aid. An element already among the most controversial of the Lomé agreements, and which is now reinforced by Cotonou. by

Under the outside and the discourses of a humanitarian, solidary, generous Europe, it is in fact a pure and simple post-colonialism that imposes itself. Europe, through the Cotonou Agreements, locks under a logic, a discourse, a rhetoric of partnership the developing countries in order to better keep them in a state of dependence, or even aggravate this situation of dependence towards the industrialised countries.

I would like to make a brief historical review to show the breakdown and recent evolution that these Cotonou agreements imposed on developing countries.

You know that this process was born in 1963 in Yaoundé with the establishment of tariff preferences, financial and technical cooperation on economic and social infrastructure projects. At the time, we were working on a project. Then this continued with the successive agreements of Lomé I to IV.

Lomé I saw, with the establishment of a system of non-reciprocal tariff preferences for exports from ACP countries to the countries of the European Union, at the time of the European Economic Community, the establishment of the Stabex which is now suppressed for agricultural programmes; the establishment of sector protocols and no longer by project, including protocols affecting the sectors of sugar, bananas or beef, for example; and infrastructure financing projects. Lomé II saw, in 1979, reconducting the system and adding the Sysmin system, equivalent to STABEX for mining production.

In 1984, Lomé IV preferred, instead of a project-by-project approach, a sector-by-sector approach with the target displayed at the time, thus 18 years ago, a principle of food and agricultural self-sufficiency for these countries.

In 1989, Lomé IV evolved towards the introduction of criteria of conditionality, the compliance required of developing countries with otherwise imposed structural adjustment programmes, and an increase in power of everything in this agreement concerning measures to support the private sector.

I want you, Madame Laenens, to be pleased with the participation of civil society, but you still know what civil society is. Do not pretend to believe that these are only peasant associations, workers’ groups, or trade union organizations. Civil society is also representative of the large employer sectors, of those who defend and promote with terrible effectiveness, here, and tomorrow, there, private interests other than public interests. That is what civil society is. It’s a somewhat overwhelming notion that obviously allows your group to hide behind great principles, while you know very well — and I think the Socialists should also know — that civil society, it’s also these actors, and that they are radically more powerful in their relations with States to push for such policies and agreements as are the peasant organizations or the workers’ organizations on which you base your work.

Cotonou, therefore, is a cooperation and trade agreement: cooperation with a strong emphasis on everything that is investment policy and development of the private sector; trade with the abolition of non-reciprocal tariff preferences in 2007, and, another important element that few have noted so far, an incentive to the creation of free trade zones purely called "regional economic partnership agreements" of which it is already evident, in the very terms of the Cotonou Agreement, that they essentially serve to impose on these regions an alignment on the rules of the WTO.

You’ve been talking about 10 minutes now.

... ... And I have ...

... ... and 15 minutes.

I have 30 minutes. It is not a justification for voting but rather a participation in the debate in plenary session. The justification of the vote, I will make it later eventually!

This is the issue of the creation of free trade zones induced by the Cotonou Agreement. Discussions on these regional economic partnership agreements have begun since September 27 as if we had already ratified these agreements. Today is November 21st. Thus, we are already obviously, in the reality of the ongoing negotiations, largely behind what has already begun, as if our Parliament had already voted Cotonou!

I will come to the main criticisms I have to raise against these Cotonou Agreements. There are three, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen. I will recall the words of Ms. Séverine Rougoumamou, a professor at Dar EsSalaam University, who publishes her comments on these agreements in a UNDP report. She wrote in particular: “These Cotonou agreements have devoted a real abuse of the power of the European Union, of an overwhelming superiority in institutional and economic resources, to succeed in imposing its views on developing countries.”

The second criticism. From the logic that prevailed under the Lomé Agreements, a logic that ⁇ ined sustainable development in a framework of state sovereignty as an axis and as a reference criterion, we move to the dogma of market-driven growth with, in Article 41 of the Cotonou Agreements, the obligation to implement the AGCS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

Now, this is interesting, dear colleagues, because the AGCS — you see — is an agreement that provides, if it is finally adopted thus, the possible privatization of all the services that will be subject to this agreement, without excluding public services. I know that you have already refused to vote, with a large majority including socialists and environmentalists among you, a motion of recommendation that I had filed in June last year to demand that our government campaign for the exclusion of public services from the scope of the AGCS currently negotiated. It is useless to say here and outside the Parliament that you are for the maintenance of a minimum of public service in our country and in foreign countries if, by this agreement, you impose, under Article 41, the obligation for the developing countries concerned to conform to the AGCS currently in preparation.

The second sensitive and critical article for me is Article 46 of the Cotonou Agreements. And here it is even more confusing of paradox for those who were present at the plenary session last week: Article 46 of the Cotonou Agreements provides for the obligation for the States Parties, and therefore for the ACP States, to conform to the ADPIC Agreement that we talked about last week. by

You voted a moderately critical proposal for a resolution on the preparation process for these ADPICs.

The majority, especially the majority, is very well governed by alibis resolution proposals. It doesn’t eat bread, it doesn’t cost much, it consumes a little paper and it eventually makes it possible to brand some good resolutions, that’s the case to say, outside.

Again, here, it’s not about good resolutions but it’s about stopping the ADPICs that worried you last week, refusing to vote at least this article 46 of the Cotonou agreements.

Finally, Article 67 provides for the obligation, for ACP members of these Cotonou Agreements, to comply with the IMF structural adjustment program, I have already mentioned. My third criticism is a fundamental criticism. In these negotiations, as in the Marrakech WTO negotiations, an insistent demand from developing countries to the industrialized countries of the European Union concerned the removal of their safeguard clauses and protective mechanisms, mechanisms and clauses that they have granted to themselves at European level to protect their own markets. This is one of the great paradoxes and one of the great iniquities of this type of agreement: the countries of the South are forced by any means to open themselves to free competition, international competitiveness and international trade markets. This kind of thing comes with incredible fanaticism. At the same time, with regard to our own markets in industrialized countries, especially European countries, in different sectors, we obstinately refuse to submit to these same rules. There are therefore two weights, two measures and it is one of the marks of inequality, imbalance and flagrant injustice that characterize this agreement.

This agreement is crossed by a dogmatic belief in free trade and private initiative, while there is, as in the WTO agreements, the will to weaken public power and the sovereignty of peoples.

As a result of the implementation of this agreement, the imbalances between the northern and southern countries will be seen deepen. We will therefore see this radical and even violent, dogmatic and fanatic imposition on developing countries to open their markets when we are not even able to submit to the same rules.

I would like to conclude, Mr. Speaker, — I have a thirty minute left — by pointing out the outcomes of this whole process and by pointing out the current situation.

The share of the ACP countries in total imports from the European Union was 6.7% in 1976; in 1998, it fell to 3.4%. EU aid to ACP countries increased from 0.37% of the GDP of the European Union in 1988 to 0.23% of the GDP of the same European Union in 1998, not to mention that part of this aid, of the order of 60 to 80% returns to us through the acquisition of equipment, goods and services and fees paid by developing countries to experts nationals of EU Member States.

Furthermore, Member States continue to protect private investments, for example in transnational policy, through bilateral agreements. These are the investment treaties that you have voted for with a real ratification rage since July 1999. Member States and their private companies continue to push for this unlimited liberalization. They fuel unrest and armed violence by continuing to sell weapons and are stakeholders in the corruption phenomenon that they denounce, making a mistake of not knowing that, when there is a corrupt, there is also a corrupt.

Therefore, I ask you, consequently, not to vote on these Cotonou Agreements.

I would like to replicate briefly, if I can.

You come between, so you replicate.

First, the Senate is responsible for its own actions or the actions it does not impose. Second, I would like to emphasize that the report I have read carefully explains the dangers of the agreements. I wonder what the definition of civil society is. What should a country be represented by if it has a corrupt government? Who will accuse the corrupt government if even civil society is no longer seen as a credible partner? I think this is the strength of these agreements. They are based on political dialogue and partnership. However, this partnership is not laid down with the governments, but just communicated to civil society so that where there are corrupt governments, civil society can correct it. I refer to the example of the banana. I think this is the most speaking example to indicate what was better in the past than in these accords.

Furthermore, I would like to invite colleague Decroly to refuse to approve international agreements such as the Lomé Agreements and the Cotonou Agreements — now called the Cotonou Agreements — and to surrender the people to the overall system of free trade. I think that the Cotonou Agreements, with the observations made therein, currently provide a better guarantee for the ACP countries to ⁇ full-fledged development than no agreements.