ACP/EU cooperation needs deep reflection

Luanda, – The International Relations specialist, Belarmino Van-Dúnem, Wednesday in Luanda, said that the cooperation between African, Caribbean and Pacific states and the European Union (ACP-EU) needs a realist and deep reflection, as well as a greater pragmatism and good willing by the Europeans towards the nations of these regions.

The university lecturer was speaking during an exclusive interview to Angop on the occasion of the 18th session of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of ACP-EU, that the Southern African country is hosting as from Wednesday with preparatory meetings until December 3.

Belarmino Van-Dúnem said "if we assess the execution of the 9th European Development Fund (EDF) we will see that agriculture, as being the key element for the development and fight against hunger, was only designated as priority sector by four countries, from 79

countries that comprise ACP-EU, while other 15 nations pointed out rural development as their priority.

On the other hand, he added that after the end of the fifth year of the 9th EDF in 2008, it can be noticed that only seven percent of this amount, from the global value estimated at 13.5 billion Euros, were used for the rural development, while agriculture got only 1.1 percent.

“With the passage from the ninth to the tenth the EU determined that the remainder could not pass from one to the other, although we acknowledge that there was an increase of the funds from 13.5 billion Euros, in the ninth, to 22.7 billion Euros, in the tenth EDF”, he said.

The university teacher argued that it also reflects that the mechanisms of expenditure of the funding are very complexes.

He also referred that from the total amount of EDF, about 400 billion Euros stay with the European Union itself for viability studies, bureaucratic process of expenditure and monitoring of the implementation of these funds.

Belarmino Van-Dunem stressed that this amount is more than the support given to a country like Angola that is developing itself, that is why he considers it unfair, although it is known that the institutions based in the ACP states may not have, sometimes, the technical capacity to conduct the studies.

So, he defended that these funds should be used so that these countries could capitalise and boost themselves in order to acquire skilful technicians and institutions.