EUROPE: Development Experts Say South Ignored at Essen Summit

• by IPS Correspondents (bonn)
• Sunday, December 18, 1994
• Inter Press Service

BONN, Dic 18 (IPS) - Development experts lashed European Union (EU) leaders this week for adopting a Euro-centrist stance and ignoring the issues of particular relevance to the South at their bi-annual weekend summit in the German city of Essen.

The EU document summarising the two-day discussions of the 12 joined by Austria, Sweden and Finland -- set to become members next year -- was "disappointing" in respect of the parts which dealt particularly with the EU's relations with the Third World, noted an eminent German expert on development affairs, Uwe Holtz, in an interview with IPS Monday.

The non-governmental Germanwatch's chair, Holger Baum, shared this view, pointing out that issues such as the developing country debt which reached 1,750 billion dollars at the end of 1993 had been completely left out.

An Indian activist, Devinder Sharma, invited to Germany by NGOs organising the so-called "counter summit" parallel to the EU meet in Essen, some 160 kilometers north of Bonn, charged the Union with perpetuating "two classes: the rich and technologically superior North and the poor cultural slaves of the South".

Holtz, a professor at Bonn University, noted that the 26-page paper with almost an equal number of additional sheets attached as an appendix did underline the EU's intention to intensify relations with the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"This is to be welcomed," he said, "but the fact is that substantial commitments are missing".

There was no affirmation of commitment to helping establish peace, promote development, support environmental protection measures and enforce human rights, including the right to development in the Third World, he said.

"And it is precisely this which the EU, within the framework of the Maastricht Treaty for establishment of the Union, should have been done," said Holtz.

Holtz held the chair of Germany's parliamentary committee on economic cooperation for a record period of 20 years until the Oct. 16 general election, which he did not contest.

He said the EU leaders should have renewed their commitment to the objectives agreed at major international gatherings in the past two years.

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