Ashton and Fuele assure Turkey over EU accession. AFP reports:
EU officials assured Turkey Tuesday over its troubled bid to join the bloc and praised the country’s growing regional role after claims the lagging progress was pushing Ankara away from the West.
The commitment came after a meeting in Istanbul between EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Turkey’s chief negotiator in membership talks, Egemen Bagis.
“Trust and friendship are the marks of the relationship between Turkey and the EU. We both have the same goals” for peace and prosperity, Ashton told a joint press conference after the talks. (…)
Fule underlined that the 27-nation bloc had a “clear mandate” on Turkey’s membership bid and called for ways to accelerate the negotiations. “We have to find ways to gear up the admission process,” he said.
Usackas: EU confident in Afghan aid spending. The EU Observer reports:
The EU’s new envoy to Afghanistan has said he has “full confidence” in the way EU funds are being spent, despite a US decision to pull billions of dollars over corruption allegations. “I have full confidence that EU taxpayers money is being spent correctly,” the head of the EU embassy in Kabul, Vygaudas Usackas, told EUobserver by phone from the Afghan capital on Tuesday (13 July).
The Lithuanian diplomat, who took up the post in April, noted that an EU decision to postpone the launch of its new €600 million aid programme from May until September is not linked to the US move. “The postponement of the €600 million package has nothing to do with the American deliberations …We have decided to wait from spring to autumn to give the Afghans time to define what they want to see for the next three years. That’s it.” An international conference in Kabul on 20 July will shed light on how best to use the EU funds, he explained.
About €700-million-worth of EU-sponsored projects are currently ongoing in the war-torn country, he added, saying: “No payments have been stopped or suspended.”
A US House of Representatives subcommittee on 30 June blocked a White House request for an extra $3.9 billion (€3.1 bn) in aid after Afghan government corruption allegations came to light in two of the US’ most-respected newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. (…)
The EU’s Mr Usackas said that under present arrangements, 50 percent of EU aid is channeled via open tenders to project managers and the rest is paid to internationally-administered trust funds, such as the World Bank-linked Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.
The Afghan government at an international meeting in London in January asked the EU to start making some payments directly into the state budget, but Mr Usackas warned that any such move is conditional on reforms. “We are very keen to see funding channeled through the Afghan government, however, this will certainly be conditional on the Afghan government making progress in the fight against corruption and strengthening financial management,” he said.
See also an AFP report here.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Parliament. A press statement reports about the Q&A. Extract:
“How should the EU deal with Hamas?”, asked Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, DE). “Personally I think it is really a mistake to say ‘I do not talk to these persons’”, replied Mr Fayyad.
“So far, the EU has provided billions of Euros to the Palestinian Authority – where does this stand in comparison to American aid? We feel that we are paying for other’s policies”, said Miguel Portas (GUE/NGL, PT). “One often says that in Palestine, the EU is an economic giant but a political dwarf. What do you, Mr Prime Minister, think we could do to enhance our political role?”, added Göran Färm (S&D, SE).
“The EU is already an effective player”, replied Mr Fayyad, observing that the EU, once there is a consensus, can play a crucial role in influencing the Middle East “Quartet” (United Nations, USA, EU, and Russia) and adding that the Quartet had recently adopted a position very close to an earlier opinion of the European Council. “I believe that the EU is in a much better position when it comes to becoming an important player than it has been at any point before”, he said.
EU countries together contribute a third of the overall financial support to the Palestinian Authority. Another third comes from Arab countries and the rest from USA, Norway and other sources. The USA is the biggest single contributor, noted Mr Fayyad.
See also Barroso’s statement following his meeting with Fayyad.
Modernizing Russia? At the Moscow Times, Vladimir Ryzhkov writes about a seminar organized by Memorial and Indem on the fallout from the Yukos affair:
President Dmitry Medvedev has not convinced too many people that his plans to modernize Russia will amount to anything. New Economic School rector Sergei Guriyev pointed out that Russia’s per capita gross national product is now equivalent to what South Korea’s was 11 years ago. But even then, South Korea stood much higher than today’s Russia in international ratings based on its stable business climate, rule of law, independent judiciary, protection of private property and the high quality of its government institutions. It was precisely these factors that made it possible for South Korea to attract huge investment from all over the world and to achieve rapid economic growth.
By contrast, Russia has not even set improving the quality of its institutions as a strategic goal. What’s more, as in almost every resource-rich country with weak state institutions, the ruling elite have no interest in the country’s economic development. The only thing they are concerned about is preserving their economic and political monopoly that allows them to steal as much of the country’s assets as they can. As long as this monopoly remains in force, any attempt to modernize the country is senseless. (…)
Only free, independent and enterprising people are capable of being the driving forces behind modernization, but those are exactly the people whom the state is persecuting. How can it invite foreign scientists and engineers to work at its planned innovation city in Skolkovo while at the same time hold dozens of Russian scientists and scholars in prison on trumped-up charges of espionage? How can Russia attract Western investors when it jails Khodorkovsky in a clear case of selective justice and when the country’s most successful businessmen, such as former Yevroset owner Yevgeny Chichvarkin, are forced to flee the country for fear of arrest?
A defense of the French role in Africa. Yves Gounin writes in Foreign Policy:
Paris certainly had a hand in a few African coups in the distant past, but the idea that Paris is still pulling the strings from behind the scenes is ludicrous. (…) Far from pulling the strings, France is, most of the time, trying to maintain its neutrality and merely keeping the score. (…) France’s relations with Africa have been profoundly transformed in recent decades, and they currently bear little resemblance to the admittedly unhealthy relationship of the post-colonial years.
Future of EU special representatives. RFE/RL’s Ahto Lobjakas reports:
The European Union appears on the brink of reversing a controversial plan to scrap its 12 special representatives to places ranging from the South Caucasus, Moldova, and Central Asia to Afghanistan and the Great Lakes of Africa, officials in Brussels say.
EU ambassadors met today (13) for the third time this month to decide the envoys’ futures. Diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity say broad agreement is emerging among the 27 member states that the mandates of all 12 will be extended by at least six months and their long-term fates left open, pending later debate.
From the think tanks: Iris Kempe, Completing Europe: A Response to Ronald Asmus (”Is Enlargement Dead?”). GMF, here.
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