DRAFT OPINION
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
for the Committee on Development
on a development strategy for Africa
(2005/2142(INI))
Draftsman: Tobias Pflüger
10.10.2005

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Foreign Affairs calls on the Committee on Development, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions in its motion for a resolution:

1. Welcomes the progress which has been made in recent decades, including the triumph of democracy over tyranny, colonialism and apartheid in countries such as Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa, which show that fundamental change depends on the popular will;
2. Recommends a debate, also as to financial compensation, on the colonial exploitation of Africa by European countries and the consequences resulting from it, i.e. the establishment of unjust post-colonial structures concerning trade, land and enterprises;
3. Calls for a new effort to combat poverty and social exclusion in Africa; calls for investment and resources to be allocated primarily to poverty reduction instead of military interventions and the build-up of national armies, as it is not military capabilities but substantial poverty reduction which is the prerequisite for peace and security;
4. Recommends initiating a debate on the role European corporate interest plays in fuelling many of Africa's conflicts, as e.g. in Sudan German companies have huge stakes in infrastructure projects which may spur secessionist impulses in the South;
5. Underlines the importance of establishing and maintaining an efficient and properly funded public administration, providing an optimum level of public services; therefore recommends to end European funding being used for privatising state-owned companies;
6. Calls for the reversal of proposed cuts in EU funding for work on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and other health sector initiatives involving Africa;
7. Calls for an end to the “Fortress Europe” which has cost the life of thousands of refugees; demands an immediate halt of the killing of refugees on the external border of the EU and the deportation of African refugees, calls for an end of the co-operation with Morocco, which is deporting refugees to the Saharan desert;
8. Calls for a stronger European contribution in the stagnating decolonialization process in the occupied DARS, calls on the EU to pressure Morocco to end its obstruction of the UN peace plan of 1991; calls for an increase of EU humanitarian aid for the Sahraui refugees who for 30 years have been living in refugee camps;
9. Stresses that EU military and police operations in Africa must not prop up undemocratic regimes; calls for an effective scrutiny of operations such as in the DR Congo, where elections have again been postponed, where companies continue to be privatised for the personal profit of government members and where the role of EU-trained police troops (EUPOL-KINSHASA) and EU military advisers (EUSEC) remains unclear concerning the incidents on June 30 2005 in which peaceful demonstrators were killed;
10. Is concerned that in the European Defence Paper, drawn up by an agency of the European Union, EU battle groups point at Africa as a major region for EU military operations;
11. Calls on EU member states to end their military presence in Africa; calls for a dissolution of foreign military bases such as the ones in Djibouti and in Diego Garcia, from where the deported citizens of Mauritius should be allowed to return, calls on EU member states not to take part in the military exercise of the NATO Response Force (NRF) in June 2006 in Cape Verde.