De EU en TROPISCHE BOSSEN

"GET REAL QUOTE", according to Jacques Delors[1]. If this is truly the case is the question. It is a fact that the trade decisions fall within the competence of the EU. After the World Bank, the EU is the largest multi-lateral donor and its influence on the political level in the next 45 years will likely increase rather than decrease.

The term EU should actually only be used when speaking about issues which involve the second or third pillar and about the policy in the member states, not when speaking about that which is already laid down in the Treaty of Rome. For this, the term EC has been reserved. See appendix III. As expected, in the future the naming will become more and more blurred and the term EU will eventually become the norm[2].

EU aid means European Community aid plus that of the 15 Member States. This report is limited to the aid extended via the European Commission and is therefore restricted to European Community aid.

The EU is a political-economical bulwark. The history of the EU, beginning in 1949, shows that the EU was created with the vision to avoid war between the Member States by uniting these states both economically as well as politically: trade relations around coal, steel and agricultural products were in the cradle of the EU[3]. EC aid in the beginning was in the form of special trade advantages to the previous colonies. In later years, aid was still, in many cases, enclosed within a trade package. Even today, trade and aid, are strongly interwoven.

In recent years, EC aid has come under increasing criticism. Various internal and external evaluations show that EC help has scored poorly in the social and environmental arenas. There are many reasons why this is the case and this report will go into them more deeply.

Every year around 15 million hectares of tropical forests disappears [4]. For the EU, survival of the tropical forests is a priority. World-wide, the EU finances one third of all tropical forest projects. The EU also recognises the importance of tropical forests: Since 1992, aid to tropical forests has increased significantly till around 100 million Euro a year. This is in great part thanks to the European Parliament.

With this report, the Netherlands Committee for IUCN and Fern, would like to provide Europarlamentarians and NGOs a manual of how the EU assistance can be improved. In spite of the ties between aid and trade, the focus will be on the aid aspect.

In the last 10 years, the European Parliament has played an important role both in the applications of EU aid with regards to tropical forests, the increasing of funds for the conservation of tropical forests and the critical following??? of contributions from the Eureopean Commission. Every year, the Parliament must once again fight for the maintenance of the budget line for tropical forests, the creation of more opportunities to have access to a proper distribution of available funds and to urge the Commission to prioritise the social aspects of the tropical forest BELEID.

The Netherlands Committee for IUCN and Fern hope to motivate Europarliamentarians to go on with the existing policy and where necessary to improve it so that the tropical forest policy remains high on the agenda and aid to tropical forest countries increases in quality. If the Parliament is not alert, the money flow to tropical forest projects will likely diminish, trade policies will neglect the environmental aspects and the quality of the aid given will not structurally improve.

Since the Maastricht Treaty, "sustainable development" has become a central goal of EU Development Policy. Sustainable development, along with the integration of developing countries in the world economy, reduction of povertyXXX, and support for human rights and democratisation are goals in the Treaty. The Amsterdam Treaty has once again confirmed and expanded on these goals.

This policy, as it is rewritten in the Treaty, confirms that which was already laid down in the Lome IV Treaty[5] which spoke in the favour of:

“sustainable balance between its economic objectives, the rational management of the environment and the enhancement of natural and human resources” (Article 4).

The Maastricht Treaty even went so far as to make clear that that environment policy should be integrated in all EC policy and that this policy is particularly so on the international level. The Treat of Amsterdam expanded on this even further.

1. Community policy on the environment shall contribute to the pursuit of the following objectives:

- preserving and protecting and improving the quality of the environment

- protecting human health

- prudent and rational utilization of natural resources

- promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environnmental problems

“the protection and the enhancement of the environment and natural resources, stopping the deterioration of land and forests, the restoration of ecological balances, the preservation of natural resources and their rational exploitation are basic objectives”. (Artikel 33 tot 41)

Although there is no real flaw with the texts, there is with the implementation. In the first place, the EC has still not given a clear indication of the term sustainable development. Amongst others, this is confirmed in two relevan studies oon EC help and sustainable development.

" Sustainable development is an overriding goal within the Lomé agreement. However in practice the European Commission acknowledges that it still "lacks a clear strategy and a sense of purpose to make environmental management operationally viable".[6]

“Understanding the Community’s strategic approach to integrating the environmental dimension remains an exercise in piecing together many different pieces of a policy jigsaw. This makes it difficult to communicate and implement the policy internally, share responsibility for environmental sustainability performance and enter into dialogue about environmental performance with external stakeholders”.[7]

In the second place, there is a clear unwillingness within the subdivisions of the Commission and in the Council to integrate environment in other EC policies such as Article 74 of the Agreement. This too is underlined in various studies. There are two concrete examples with regards to forests:

1. During the establishment of the European Forest Strategy DG VI (Agriculture) suggested that the Commission did not have the competence to deal with 'forests and the environment' and that therefore, the Forest Strategy was principally geared towards the 'production function' of the forest.

2. In a similar case, the Council judged that the two regulations for forest protection - one against air pollution and one against forest fires - fell under 'Agriculture' and not under 'Environment'. The Parliament fought for this posiiton and won. See Box here under.

The Parliament's Lawsuit against the Council

Case: The Parliament brought a case for the annulment of regulations 307/97 amending reg. 3528/86 on protection of Community’s forests against atmospheric pollution; and of regulation 308/97 amending regulation 2158/92 on protection forests against fire.

The Parliament argued that the regulations had been adopted on an inappropriate legal basis (Article 43 of the Agriculture title) and that its prerogatives concerning participation in drafting the legislation had been affected (under Art. 43 the Parliament is only consulted; under the environment base 130S the procedure is either co-operation or co-decision with the Parliament). The Council admits that neither trees nor forests are agricultural products within the meaning of the Treaty.

However the Council argued that the aid scheme for afforestation of agricultural areas set up in 1992 initiated a forestry strategy “designed to ensure the increasingly close involvement of farmers in the process of turning forests to account” and that Community forests schemes, even if mainly environmental at the outset, are no longer so (paragraph 10). The Commission intervened in support of the Council, arguing that trees and therefore forests must be regarded as “products listed in Annex II of the Treaty”, i.e. agricultural.

The Court examined the purpose and the content of the challenged rules in order to determine the correct legal basis. It concluded that, in this instance, “measures to defend the forest environment against the risks of destruction and degradation associated with fires and atmospheric pollution inherently form part of the environmental action for which Community competence is founded on Article 130s of the Treaty (para.16)” and that therefore in using Article 43 as legal basis, the Council infringed essential procedural requirements and undermined the Parliament’s prerogatives (para. 20). The Court suspended the effects of the annulment until new regulations could be adopted, “within a reasonable period”.

By Nicole Gerard, Greenpeace European Policy Unit (1999)

Tropcal Forest Policy

Bestaand Policy

All EC policies on tropical forests[8] must fall within the gneral goals on development and environment mentioned above. In the second half of the ninety-eighties, as a result of the publicity on the dramatic decrease of the tropical forests, actions encouraging the renewal of wood from tropical forests and public criticism of developmental aid projects' contribution to deforestation, tropical forests became the interest of the general public and thereby onto the political agenda. Within the EC, the European Parliament was very active in introducing resolutions and reports which mentioned the problems of deforestation.

The Commission reacted, according to various internal sources POGINGEN, with “The Conservation of Tropical Forests: the Role of the Community (1989)[9]”. For the first time, this message made clear that the EC role for itself was the conservation of the tropical forests. WEGGELEGD. ITTO and TFAP were seen as important instruments to tackle the problem. ‘Land reform’ and ‘correcting inappropriate policy incentives within and outside the forestry sector’ were seen as important remedies to tackle the issue. The EC named 5 points as most important for an EC strategy: 1) development aid, 2) actions with reference to timber trade (within which was the establishment of a behaviour code XXX for European logging companies!), 3) the expansion of a few protected (tree) species within CITES, 4) increase of funds for tropical forests, 5) debt for conservation strategies and 6) research.

The Communicative was followed by the 1990 Council Resolution, “Tropical Forests: development aspects”[10]. This resolution supported the Communicative which saw TFAP as the most important framework for action and urged an increasing of funds for the forest industry.

The Parliament, as the political organ most in contact with society, pushed for more action which led to the establishment in 1991 of the Tropical Budget Line[11]. In 1995, this Budget Line was given a legal basis with the Regulation “Operations to promote tropical forests”[12], which ends this year (1999). By accepting the Regulation, the trade aspect of the communicative was 'translated' as the 'defining and development of a cerfitication system'. It was the first time attention was given to ‘capacity building’ and ‘provision of information to forest peoples’.

Besides these documents which are specifically geared towards the tropical forests, there are a number of other texts which refer to tropical forests. The ODI Source book wee the literature list -gives an overview of all relevant papers. The two mostt important ones are the Regulations for Asia and Latin America and the Lomé Convention's Forest Protocol:

· The Regulation for Asia and Latin America (ALA Regulation[13]) says that:

“Protection of the environment and natural resoucres, and sustainable development shall be long term priorities: 10% being the weighted average of the necessary financial resources of the aid, for the period 1991 to 1995, shall be set aside for projects specifically aimed at protecting the environment, in paricular tropical forests”

· In 1995, a Forest Protocol was included in the Lomé Convention (Protocol No 10). This Protocol requests, among other things, support to help the ACS countries in developing sustainable forest management and stresses the need to bring wood coming from sustainably manged forests.

During a period of around 5 years, numerous policy documents were developed and adopted. However, a cohesive vision with goals, stategies and activities upon which to establish an apparatus to implement the policies was absent. In 1996, DGVIII's tropical forest expert, attempted, to some extent, to make up for this deficiency by developing the ‘Guidelines for Forest Sector Development Cooperation’, a two part manual afterwhich EC policy was linked to EC procedures. However, according to an evaluation by the Consultance ECO (1998) of tropical forest projects undertaken:

"Policy statements are scattered and are not consistent in terms of terminology, objectives and priorities. There is a gap between the policy statements and the actual activities of the EC development co-operation and no means of ensuring that stated policy is actually carried out via the financial instruments, paricularly for the geographical instruments (EDF ALA)". (ECO 1998)

Lack of strategy and a strong emphasis on the 'distribution' of large sums of money -with ALA and EOF[14] funds - as well as bad coordination has all led to the financing of a scramble of projects. Some good, many bad.

This lack of vision and strategy was strongly recognised within the subdivisions of the Commission, especially in the DGIB departments[15] and DG VIII[16] who wwwere directly working on the forests Budget Line.[17]. A lack of manpower is partly to blame. The DGIB deparment and DG VIII who were responsible for the ALA and EOF funds, have insufficient expertise in tropical forests as well as the ecological and social aspects. The few good and motivated officers are then completely overburdened.

Decision making

Decision making in the EC on tropical forest issues is a complex process with responsibilities split between several different Directorates Generals (DGs). Each one has responsibilities for different geographical areas. The following four DGs are directly responsible for development cooperation: DG1; DG1A; DG 1B and DG VIII.

DG 1 is responsible for China, Taiwan, South Korea, as well as the US, Australia, Japan. DG1 is also responsible for trade negotiations within the WTO framework.

DG1A is responsible for the Central and Eastern European Countries as well as those of the ex-Sovjet Union, Mongolia, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta and European countries outside the EU.

DG 1B is responsible for the Middle-East, the Far-East, Latin America and Asia (except those countries which fall under the responsibilities of DG1 and DG VIII).

DG VIII is called the Directorate for Development Cooperation but deals effectively only with the 72 ACP countries and implementation of the Lomé Convention. Guyana, Surinam and Belize fall under DG VIII.

On top of these, DG VI (Agriculture) and DG XI (Environment) have dealt with aid to tropical forest countries. DG XI ran a small budgetline (Global Environment Budget) and DG VI deals with French colonies in the tropics. DG XII funds research in tropical forest countries and finances the EFTRN, European Tropical Forest Research Network.

Since summer 1998, a new ‘DG’ has been put into place called the SCR (Service Commun Relex). It is the task of this DG to deal with the practical sides of project administration: the project implementation once the project contract is signed.

Higher up in the EC's hierarchy there is little regard for tropical forests, environment and human rights. Looking at the history of the structure and political situation it becomes obvious that environment and development policy was always overshadowed by the larger ‘EU-issues’ of security, a common market and increasing free trade. The eastern enlargement of the EU and the political instability in the Magreb region and Russia also contributed to the ever increasing movement of funds to the region. At this time, 1/4 of the development budget, not including EOF funds, to to Eastern Europe and almost 20% of it to the Magreb region.[18].

The last months it has become more and more obvious that in the higher regions of DGI and DG VIII[19] you come into the cadre of "streamlining" in which all horizontal[20] budget lines (under which all the budget lines which finance tropical forests are found) will slowly but surely be allowed to disappear. As much as streamlining is highly needed (see Heading IV), it seems that, according to both evaluations of European Community aid as well as the first steps of the 'streamlining' that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.

Op dit moment is het EG tropische-bossenbeleid aan herziening toe. ITTO en TFAP, de belangrijkste vehikels in de Mededeling van 1989, zijn op sterven na dood en zeker geen organen meer waar veel heil van verwacht wordt. De Mededeling van 1989 is dus aan herziening toe.

De Richtlijn voor de tropische-bossenbudgetlijn loopt eind 1999 af en wordt op dit moment herzien, het Lomé-Verdrag loopt in 2000 af en wordt herzien. De ALA-richtlijn is aan herziening toe maar wordt tot nu toe ieder jaar verlengd. De ECO-evaluatie van tropische-bossenprojecten geeft als aanbeveling dat:

"A process of consultation be set in motion through which a single policy paper is prepared which is applicable to all financial instruments. The paper would state the principles to be followed, set out strategic priorities and give general guidelines for forest development co-operation. This would constitute, in effect, the basis for an EC Tropical Forestry programme which would be of global scope and would be a reference for the EC and the Member States".

Het is dus de juiste tijd voor een nieuwe strategie. Na ten minste twee eerdere pogingen van DG XI (in 1994) en DG VIII (in 1997) is er nu een Discussion Paper "Forests and development: the EC Approach" van DG VIII en DG IB in omloop die de basis zal vormen voor een nieuwe Mededeling. Ondanks het feit dat er veel waardevols in de Discussion Paper staat constateerden milieu- en ontwikkelings ngo’s, waaronder het Nederlands Comité voor IUCN en Fern, in hun commentaar:

"The paper contains much of merit particularly in the analysis. However, the main problem is that the proposed actions do not address the problems identified in the analysis. Furthermore the lack of prioritisation gives the impression of a 'wish-list' rather than of a strategic policy paper"[21].

Tenzij de Discussion Paper een duidelijke focus krijgt, blijft het gevaar dat de EG-hulp voor tropische bossen gevangen blijft zitten in een vage visie, onduidelijke doelstellingen en een gebrek aan een implementatieplan. Met andere woorden: dat er geen noemenswaardige verbetering op zal treden.

Op dit moment is onduidelijk waneer de Discussion Paper in een Mededeling getransformeerd wordt. Ondanks het feit dat de Commissie, bij monde van de heer J. Houtman (Directeur van afdeling A - duurzame ontwikkeling strategieën - DG VIII), in februari 1999 aangaf binnen enkele weken met de Mededeling uit te komen, is er sindsdien niets meer van vernomen.

De nieuwe richtlijn voor de tropische-bossenbudgetlijn, die voor 2000 door de Raad en het Parlement (via de medebeslissingsprocedure) goedgekeurd moet zijn, ligt op schema. Het oorspronkelijke voorstel van de Commissie is geamendeerd door het Europees Parlement met meer dan 30 amendementen en aangenomen tijdens de mei 99-sessie van het Parlement in Straatsburg. De amendementen van het Parlement richten zich op de noodzaak voor betere milieu- en sociale effectrapportages en een grotere toegang tot fondsen voor NGO’s en inheemse volken. Het Nederlands Comité voor IUCN, Fern en andere ngo’s, zijn in grote lijnen tevreden met het huidige voorstel.[22] Duidelijk is wel dat voor een goede uitvoering van de budgetlijn de structurele problemen, zoals geschetst in hoofdstuk IV, eerst opgelost moeten zijn.

Het is te hopen dat de aanbeveling van de ECO-evaluatie om eindelijk met een duidelijke beleidsnotitie uit te komen - zoals omschreven op bladzijde 9 - ter harte genomen wordt en dat een dergelijke notitie nog dit jaar het licht zal zien. Duidelijk is dat deze notitie gezien moet worden in het bredere kader van EG-ontwikkelingshulp en dat de invloed op tropische bossen van het algemene EG handels- en hulpbeleid centraal zal moeten staan om tot een effectief actieplan te komen.

Zoals geformuleerd in het Verdrag van Amsterdam moet het EG-beleid complementair zijn aan het beleid van de lidstaten. Met andere woorden: de EG moet beleid uitvoeren dat de lidstaten niet kunnen of niet willen uitvoeren. In ieder geval moet het EG-beleid goed afgestemd zijn op het beleid van de lidstaten. Keer op keer blijkt uit evaluaties[23]dat dit onvoldoende het geval is. Keer op keer is ook gesuggereerd in evaluaties dat de politieke wil ontbreekt, zowel bij de EG als bij de lidstaten, om tot een betere coördinatie te komen.

De coördinatie van het tropische-bossenbeleid vindt voornamelijk plaats binnen de ETFAG (European Tropical Forests Advisory Group). Hoewel ETFAG een nuttige groep is, waarbinnen op informele wijze informatie uitgewisseld wordt omtrent tropische-bossenprojecten, heeft ETFAG geen zicht op niet-tropische bossenprojecten in tropische-bossenregio’s met dikwijls grote negatieve impact op de bossen, onvoldoende mandaat om tot een visieontwikkeling en beleidsstrategie te komen en onvoldoende tijd om EG-hulp in tropische bossen te monitoren, te evalueren en bij te stellen. Ook zijn lang niet alle lidstaten goed vertegenwoordigd binnen ETFAG.

EG handelsbeleid

Het EG-handelsbeleid heeft direct en indirect effect op de situatie van het tropisch bos. In het kader van deze paper zijn er twee zaken die specifiek de aandacht vragen.

· Het Algemeen Preferentie Stelsel. Afgelopen mei nam de Raad een nieuwe Richtlijn aan binnen het Algemeen Preferentie Stelsel[24] om de import van houtproducten uit landen met een goed milieubeleid een tariefverlaging te geven. Goed milieubeleid is omschreven als het uitvoeren van duurzaam bosbeheer volgens ITTO-criteria. Het Algemeen Preferentie Stelsel geldt alleen voor landen in Azië en Latijns Amerika[25], met uitzondering van de minst ontwikkelde landen in die regio’s waarvoor geen tarieven gelden. De grootste tropisch-houtexporterende landen die deze richtlijn kunnen gebruiken zijn Indonesië en Maleisië. Het Nederlands Comité voor IUCN en Fern staan op het het standpunt dat de ITTO-criteria onvoldoende zijn om vast te stellen of het bos duurzaam beheerd wordt. Duidelijk is dat duurzaam bosbeheer nog niet de praktijk is in Indonesië en Maleisië. In beide landen gaat de exploitatie van bos bovendien gepaard met schending van mensenrechten. De EG zou een slecht signaal afgeven deze landen voor hun huidige bosbeheer te belonen met tariefverlaging.

· De Wereld Handels Organisatie (WTO). De WTO start waarschijnlijk een nieuwe handelsliberalisatie ronde in 2000. Dit wordt de eerste handelsronde na de Uruguay Round. Op dit moment zijn er discussies over het op de agenda zetten van verlaging van de importtarieven voor ‘forest products’ en andere producten zoals oliehoudende zaden. Een studie van Jaako Poyry[26] toonde aan dat een verdere tariefverlaging van hout een toename van 3 tot 4% in de handel in hout tot gevolg zou kunnen hebben. Zeker is dat verdere liberalisatie van landbouw op de agenda zal komen tijdens de komende ministeriële vergadering in Seattle (november 1999). Ook zal de EG aandringen op het op de agenda plaatsen van een voorstel voor het liberaliseren van investeringen - de Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in een nieuw jasje. Er is onvoldoende onderzoek naar de gevolgen van verdere liberalisatie van de handel, inclusief landbouwproducten, op bossen. De EG heeft zich gecommitteerd aan het uitvoeren van een milieu-effectrapportage van de voorgestelde vrijhandelsvoorstellen. Het is van belang dat de milieu-, ontwikkelings- en mensenrechtenbelangen meegenomen worden in de onderhandelingspositie die de EG de komende maanden zal kiezen als voorbereiding op de conferentie in Seattle.

cartoon: Lex Dirkse
III EG-hulp

EG hulp in het algemeen

De Europese Unie - de EG en de lidstaten - is puur financieel gezien 's werelds grootste donor en neemt bijna de helft van alle ontwikkelingshulp voor haar rekening. In deze paper beperken we ons tot de hulp van de EG: hulp die door de Europese Commissie geadministreerd wordt. Deze EG-hulp bedroeg ca 9 miljard ECU in 1997.

Tabel 1: Overzicht van bestemming van EG-hulpgelden. Source: InfoFinance 1997. European Commission

Het EG-hulpbeleid heeft twee componenten. De wettelijke basis voor de eerste component is het Lomé-verdrag - zie voetnoot 6 - dat in 2000 afloopt. Op dit moment vinden de heronderhandelingen plaats over een 'nieuw' Lomé, dat meer op handel dan op hulp gericht zal zijn. Het financiële protocol dat is gekoppeld aan het Lomé-verdrag is het Europees Ontwikkelings Fonds. Via het EOF wordt gedurende 5 jaar zo'n 15 miljard Euro uitgegegeven aan de ACS-landen. Het EOF valt buiten de begroting, omdat de lidstaten hun fondsen direct in het EOF storten. Hierdoor heeft het Europees Parlement geen zeggenschap over de EOF-uitgaven.

De wettelijke status van de tweede component is vastgelegd in zo’n 80 richtlijnen, die de wettelijke basis vormen voor zo'n 70 budgetlijnen. De totale hoeveelheid budgetaire EG-hulp was zo'n 6 miljard ECU in 1996.

EG-hulp naar Tropische Bossen

Tropische-bossenprojecten

Voor tropische bossen zijn de Tropische-bossenbudgetlijn (TFBL), de Milieu in Ontwikkelingslanden Budgetlijn (EDC), de Azië en Latijns Amerika Budgetlijnen (ALA-budgetlijnen) en de NGO-Budgetlijn van belang. Ook via het EOF gaat geld naar tropische-bossenprojecten. Sinds 1995 zijn er verschillende pogingen gedaan deze EG-hulp naar tropische-bossenprojecten te rangschikken in een database. De onderstaande gegevens zijn afkomstig uit de meest recente database opgesteld door Planistat (zie literatuurlijst).

Van 1992 tot en met 1996 gaf de EG 470 miljoen ECU uit aan tropische bossen. Het totaal aantal projecten was 510, dat wil zeggen een gemiddelde van 0,9 miljoen ECU per project. Echter 78 van de 510 projecten kregen meer dan gemiddelde bedragen. De landen die de meeste EG-hulp ontvingen van 1992-1996 waren, in volgorde van belangrijkheid, Indonesië, Brazilië, de Filippijnen, Vietnam, Colombia, Nigeria en Peru.[27]

Ruim een kwart van alle beschikbare fondsen ging naar natuurbeschermingsprojecten[28] (27%), één vijfde (20%) naar onderzoek, 15% naar duurzaam bosbeheer[29], 11% naar training en minder dan 1% naar de overige vijf prioriteiten die worden gesteld door de Richtlijn voor de Tropische Bossenbudgetlijn: 1) development of buffer zones, 2) certification systems, 3) capacity building, 4) information activities in forest communities en 5) development of forest managament plans.

Regio	Bedrag in M ECU
ALA	655
MED	1078
Phare/TACIS/Balkan	1774
EOF	616
Other	1934
Total	6057

LIJST MET AFKORTINGEN 47

INTRODUCTION

Tropcal Forest Policy

Bestaand Policy

EG handelsbeleid

cartoon: Lex Dirkse
III EG-hulp

EG hulp in het algemeen

Regio

Tabel 1: Overzicht van bestemming van EG-hulpgelden. Source: InfoFinance 1997. European Commission

EG-hulp naar Tropische Bossen

Tropische-bossenprojecten

LIJST MET AFKORTINGEN 47

INTRODUCTION

Tropcal Forest Policy

Bestaand Policy

EG handelsbeleid

cartoon: Lex Dirkse III EG-hulp

EG hulp in het algemeen

Regio

Tabel 1: Overzicht van bestemming van EG-hulpgelden. Source: InfoFinance 1997. European Commission

EG-hulp naar Tropische Bossen

Tropische-bossenprojecten

cartoon: Lex Dirkse
III EG-hulp