Address by Minister for Foreign Trade and Development of Finland, Ms Paula Lehtomäki at Conference on Policy Coherence for Development in Helsinki</h1>
2 October 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me begin by also warmly welcoming you all to this conference. The NGOs play a very important role in our Presidency agenda. This conference is good continuation to the excellent dialogue we have had in the development education conference as well as the Asia people's forum that was held during the Asem meeting. I am furthermore glad of the fact that this seminar has been prepared with excellent cooperation between diffrent actors - one of the organisers being our Finnish Development Policy Committee, a real coherence pioneer in bringing together parlamentarians, government officials as well as civil society representatives to discuss development policy and policy coherence.
The subject of this conference could not be more topical. It is in the very heart of the development agenda. We are all committed to the UN Millenium Declaration and its common goals. Coherence is an important tool in making sure we keep our promise. Policy Coherence is needed in order to improve our aid effectiveness and achieving some results. We must ensure we do not break with one hand something the other one is trying to build.
The current global questions are increasingly complex. Many issues such as security, trade, environment, energy and migration require looking from more than just one or two angles. We need improved cooperation between the various players and coherent action.
The EU has a strong global role. We are even stronger if we work in a coherent manner. One of the goals of the Finnish Presidency is to find practical solutions to the question of how to improve the effectiveness and coherence of the Union's external action. This means speaking with one voice. For our part, we stress an enhanced regard for the development perspective when the Council and the Commission make decisions in the various policy areas.
The EU has expressed it's commitment to coherence, and practical steps are being taken in many fields. We have agreed to give prioritised attention to a set of 12 policy sectors from the point of view of Policy Coherence for Development. These include trade policy, security, climate change, agriculture and migration. Policy Coherence for Development is one of Finland's Presidency priorities. We want to implement the excellent commitments the EU has already made and we have chosen a couple of prioritity sectors to make progress.
In two weeks time we will host a historical joint session of Trade and Development Ministers. The current Aid for Trade -iniative will be its main topic. Our aim is to achieve a strong EU endorsement of the recommendations of the WTO Aid for Trade Task Force, and a commitment to start implementing them soon. This would mean a stronger joint effort with our partners in the developing world to strenghten for example employment and poverty reduction by building trade and productive capacities. Trade can be a strong catalyst for economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries.
But these positive linkages between trade and development are not automatic. The challenges for poor countries are many, and the current suspension of the WTO DDA negotiations does not make their situation easier. The effectiveness of EU´s Trade and Development agenda is however not only affected by the progress of the Aid for Trade initiative, but also by the WTO DDA, and the EPA negotiations as well as on the domestic trade related policy reforms initiated by EU´s partner countries. Trade related development challenges have been on the international community's agenda for a long time, for example in the Monterrey discussions on Financing for Development. It is therefore now time for us to deliver.
Another coherence priority for us has been coherence between migration and development. Last month the EU gave a substantial contribution to the United Nations High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development. We are keen to take the work forward and continue discussion on how to strengthen the positive effects of migration and mitigate its negative ones. The challenges we face in the Mediterranean are a test-case for our principles.
Thirdly, our aim is to have the Council adopt conclusions on practical improvements of the Council decision-making. We are trying to find ways to ensure that the decision-making is based on more systematic information on the possible development impacts. We also want to improve the processes of interaction between different policy communities within the Council system. Furthermore it is important to improve the capacity to deal with Policy Coherence challenges in the Council, the Commission and the Member States. Finally, we consider improving accountability and transparency of EU's development policy in general, and of EU's efforts on Policy Coherence for Development in particular, a crucial area of improvement.
Our commitment in improving the policy coherence does not end when we pass the Presidency on to Germany at the end of this year. We are looking forward to continuing the work with the future presidencies.
Dialogue between different actors in the discussion on coherence is ever so important and civil society as well as private sector have had and will have an important role to play. A promising example here is the independent and NGO based Fair Trade movement, which is working already in more than 50 countries having its main objective in giving a better deal for producers in poor countries.
I am very happy that this event takes place in Helsinki. We find it particularly important that this conference facilitates dialogue between the civil society, the research communities, the international organisations and the EU Member States. I am impressed by the number and substantive quality of participants, who have taken the time to travel to Finland to meet for this discussion to take place. I am convinced that you will have extremely fruitful discussions during the next two days here.
I have expressed my willingness to take the message of this conference forward when we will meet with the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg on 16th and 17th of October. I look forward to hearing from you.