sid-europe

On 26th November 2007 SID European Programme, EU Coherence Programme and EDC 2010 Programme organised the above briefing session, in Hotel Leopold in Brussels. See the programme for additional information.

The briefing session dealt with the issue of Policy Coherence for Development within the larger context of implementation of European Consensus for Development. The first ever European Report on Policy Coherence for Development, which was prepared by the European Commission and which will be voted in the EP plenary early next year, was chosen as a departing point for the briefing session. The purpose of the session was two-folded: on one side to provide parliamentarians, policy makers and representatives of development administrations with the latest information regarding the above topic, and at the same time to provide the participants with an opportunities to discuss the subject with an expert panel of multi-stakeholder representatives (the European Commission, researcher, parliamentarians and civil society), and with their colleagues parliamentarians from other MS and EP.

President of SID Jos van Gennip open the session by a short welcome address to the participants and invitation to the Commissioner Louis Michel to deliver his keynote speech. Apart from from coherence the Commissioner touched also upon nummber of other very topical issues of the EU development policy debate such as EPAs, Code of Conduct on Division of Labour and EU-Africa Summitt. The commissioner was followed by a panel of experts including: presentation by Louka T. Katseli, MP Greek Parliament, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, former Director OECD Development Centre presenting critical analysis from a perspective of MSs parliamentarians; very relevant concrete points by Thijs Berman , Vice-chair of the European Parliament Development Committee assessing the report from the EP perspective; presentation by Francoise Moreau, Head of unit Forward Looking Studies and Policy Coherence, DG Development & Relations with ACP States, the European Commission, who tried to give background to the report as well as the summary of the most important findings; and last but not least in a few very relevant brief points and practical examples Peter Heintze, Director EVS/EU Coherence Programme tried to give civil society perspective on the matter and role of parlaimetnarians in encuring coherence of the policies.