WELCOME SPEECH

BY

Mrs NICOLE FONTAINE,

PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

AT THE SOLEMN OPENING

OF THE THIRD UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE

ON THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

I hereby most solemnly welcome Your Majesty, as well as the UN Secretary-General, the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union, the Heads of State and Government, the President of the European Commission, and the assembled ministers, parliamentarians and representatives of non-governmental organisations.

Ladies and gentlemen:

The European Parliament is honoured and delighted to welcome this third UN Conference on the least developed countries, here on these premises where the democratic voices of the 375 million citizens of the fifteen Member States of the European Union are heard.

Last month in Strasbourg, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the subject, launched as a cry of alarm in the face of the worldwide challenge posed by the apparently inevitable worsening of the predicament of the least developed countries.

Can it really be accepted by the conscience of all those who believe in the equal dignity of all human beings and the indivisible nature of the human community that there should exist so vast a gulf between the developed countries and the least developed countries - a GDP per inhabitant ratio of 100 to 1, a growth per inhabitant differential of 6 to 1, a 30% deterioration in the terms of trade over the last two years? In the least developed countries, average life expectancy stands at 51 as opposed to 74 in the developed world, one child in ten still dies at birth, and less than half the population (and even less women) achieve basic reading, writing and mathematical skills, at a time when international aid has fallen to the level of thirty years ago.

Faced with these appalling indicators, we are obliged to conclude that the industrialised and the emergent nations have together, over half a century and despite international financial aid and the devoted work of thousands of NGOs, effectively failed to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment in the majority of the countries which achieved independence in the post-colonial epoch.

The European Parliament therefore believes that this third World Conference should be seen as an opportunity to face up to the facts and take our development partnership strategies back to the drawing-board. Our new strategies must include: opening up developed-country markets to the products of the least developed countries and removing all duties and quotas; a global waiver of those countries' debt; bringing international aid levels back up to the minimum threshold of our previous commitments; priority support for autarkic economies based on agriculture and handicrafts rather than for public enterprises with their 'black-hole' tendencies; access to land for the peasantry; local control over small-scale processing industries; use of microcredits for funding; promotion of women's role through education; environmental protection; pacification of regional conflicts and eradication of the arms trade; and taking a fresh hard look at international sanctions where they hit only the most vulnerable sections of the population.

We cannot accept the notion that this new millennium should see the continuation, or, indeed, the worsening of the gulf between rich countries still living in comfort and countries where underdevelopment and civil war leave more than two billion human beings at the mercy of hunger, servitude or terror.

It is an enormous scandal that at a time when many of the least developed countries are ravaged by epidemics, above all AIDS, medicines which would at least make it possible to stabilise the disease situation and reduce suffering remain, for reasons of profit or international indifference, inaccessible to the poorest communities and those most at threat.

The free-market economic model which is today advancing across the globe is, no reasonable person will deny, preferable to a state-controlled command economy. That applies in the social sphere too. Nonetheless, the free-market model can only be acceptable and beneficial to the extent that it takes account of the human dimension of the men and women who actually create the wealth with their work.

As you are aware, over the present decade the European Union is to take in a dozen new member states from central and eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

This enlargement is necessary if justice is to be done to those countries and the triumph of peace and democracy throughout Europe is to be made irreversible. It is now requiring a major prior financial effort. However, I must stress that there is no question of enlargement being carried out to the detriment of Europe's continuing duty to maintain relations with and provide international aid to the world's poorest countries, notably the countries of the South.

As proof of this we may point to the Cotonou agreements, as recently signed with 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. 39 of these ACP countries are also among the group of 48 least developed countries. We may also point to the European Commission's recent initiative aimed at offering free access to the EU's markets for all products originating in the least developed countries, with the sole and obvious exception of weapons and munitions. As further evidence still, we may draw attention to the decision taken by Europe's main donor countries to write off the least developed countries' debt.

The Parliament of which I have the honour to be President, and Europe as a whole, will be only the more willing to extend their support to the development of the world's poorest countries if it is clear that their development will take place on the basis of respect for the universal values to which all of our countries have subscribed by accepting the UN Charter - values which we, for our part, have very recently consolidated and extended with the signature in Nice of our own Charter of Fundamental Rights.

In this connection, the European Parliament insists that the cooperation agreements presented to it for its assent must include provisions for the abolition of child labour, the promotion of democracy and the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms, freedom of the press and gender equality.

You may rest assured that the European Parliament will be following your deliberations with the very closest attention. On behalf of that Parliament, please allow me to wish you a most successful and fertile series of debates, and to assure you that the European Parliament will cooperate fully in the implementation of the mutual commitments to be entered into in the wake of this event.

Thank you very much.