Humanitarian aid: aid to uprooted people (refugees, displaced persons) in Asian and Latin American developing countries

In its common position, the Council made certain changes to the text of the Commission proposal, in particular: - nature of the committee required to issue an opinion on proposed operations: the Council agreed that the committee would be the ALA Committee acting in accordance with the type III(a) procedure (regulatory committee); - duration of the regulation: in order to ensure maximum coherence of support and assistance operations for uprooted people in the ALA developing countries, the Council feels that in future such operations should form part of geographic cooperation programmes with the ALA developing countries; for that reason it has limited the duration of the regulation to four years (1996-1999) and entered a financial reference amount of ECU 240 m for the period concerned; - the Council also added a new article concerning the evaluation of operations (these should be available to the Member States on request) and information for the committee on projects financed and the various stages of the procedures (before and after financing); - the Council stressed that these operations should be complementary to other operations of the same type in the field of development cooperation. The Council incorporated part of the Parliament amendments, including those concerning: . taking consideration of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international texts that protect the rights of men, women and children; . taking consideration of Parliament's various resolutions on assisting refugees in the developing countries; . clarification of the programme's main objective: support and assistance to uprooted populations in the ALA developing countries for requirements not covered by humanitarian aid and longer-term projects aimed at self-sufficiency and the integration or reintegration of refugees; . clarification of the type of operation financed: reintegration of refugees in the social and economic fabric: mine clearance, combating sexual violence, support to local host communities and areas to which refugees return, and support for reconciliation; . clarification on the beneficiaries of aid: aid should be given to refugees within the meaning of the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, displaced persons, returnees, the local population of the host territories particularly affected by the arrival of refugees and former soldiers of regular armies and demobilized armed opposition movements; . an annual report to be presented to Parliament on the implementation of the regulation. None of the other Parliament amendments was adopted. �