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Environmental NGOs challenge Barroso on Commission's Euromed Sustainable Development "incoherence"


EC President Jose Manuel Barroso was formally challenged today on the Commission's "lack of coherence" on sustainable development issues within the EuroMediterranean Partnership.

A letter faxed today on behalf of the Comite de Suivi - a network of seven regional networks representing several hundred EU and south Mediterranean environment NGOs focusing on the Partnership, expresses deep concern about two recent Commission communications:

• the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the 10 th Anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

• Draft Euro-Mediterranean Roadmap for Agriculture

Both communications will be submitted for adoption by the forthcoming 7th Conference of EuroMediterranean Foreign Ministers (Luxembourg 30-31 May), and proposals for further action will be subsequently submitted to a EuroMediterranean Partnership 10th Anniversary Heads of Government Summit organised in Barcelona by Spain in November.

Decrying the lack of action on sustainable development issues within the Partnership, in spite of recommendations of the 5th and 6th Conferences of EuroMediterranean Foreign Ministers in 2002 and 2003, the letter states " despite your personal commitment to sustainability, as evidenced once again by your speech on 15 April, the messages about sustainable development in the Mediterranean given by the Commission are neither clear, coherent or convincing. Contradictory positions taken by EC officials under the two communications as compared to in other fora, have meant that "these contradictory positions of the European Commission on the central issue of sustainable development in the Mediterranean seriously undermine its credibility."

The Comite de Suivi strongly urges President Barroso " to take the steps needed in order to create the necessary provisions within the European Commission's position for a genuine, explicit, much stronger sustainability component for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, to be reflected in a revised version of the above documents for circulation to governments prior to EuroMed foreign Ministers' conference"

The letter advocates that the Partnership should be relaunched around the forthcoming Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development, to be adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention 1976 and its Protocols - since the European Community, seven member states as well as all South Mediterranean Partner states are Contracting Parties. The draft strategy urges a reorganisation of the Partnership around a central focus of sustainable development.

Foreign ministers should also give formal regional support to the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015, to be reviewed by the UN General Assembly in September, and establish conditions for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in the region, carefully evaluating within this context the possible contribution of trade liberalisation, and taking full account of the recommendations of the on-going Sustainability Impact Assessment of the EuroMediterranean Free Trade Area.

Contacts:

Professor Michael Scoullos, mio-ee-env@forthnet.ath.gr telephone: +30 210 324 7267
Eugene Clancy, Friends of the Earth MEDNET co-ordinator, mednet@foeeurope.org telephone. +34 965 652 932

Notes for Editors:

Members of the Comite de Suivi are: Arab Network for Environment and Development (RAED), Environment and Development Action in the Third World (ENDA), European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Friends of the Earth (FoE/MedNet Programme), Mediterranean NGO Network for Ecology and Sustainable Development (MEDForum), Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE), World Wild Fund Mediterranean Programme (WWF/MEDPO)

1. The Communication on EMP reform is at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/euromed/publication.htm

2. The communication on agricultural trade liberalisation has not been posted on the Commission website

3. The Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development is being drafted by the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development, an advisory body of the UNEP Mediterranean Action Plan. (http://www.unepmap.gr). The MCSD MAP services the Barcelona Convention 1976 and its Protocols. The MCSD is expected to adopt the MSSD at its next meeting, Athens 20-22 June, which will then transmit the text for formal endorsement by the ministerial segment of the 14th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention, Slovenia 8-11 November 2005.

Seven EU members states (France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia) and the European Community are Contracting Parties, along with 16 south and east Mediterranean states. The Commission represents the European Community.

Letter addressed to Barroso: here

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