Euro-Mediterranean partnership: financial and technical measures to accompany (MEDA) the reform of economic and social structures

Parliament first delivered its opinion on this proposal for a regulation in December 1995; after the Council had asked for Parliament to be consulted again, it delivered a fresh opinion in adopting the report by Mr BARON CRESPO (PSE, E). In its first opinion, Parliament had stressed two essential requirements: the conditional nature of assistance and the need to ensure transparency in the management of the programme. With regard to the former, Parliament stressed that only those Mediterranean countries and territories that guaranteed genuine respect for human rights should benefit from the MEDA programme; - With regard to the latter, transparency should be guaranteed by indicating the amounts intended for the various beneficiaries. However, various developments delayed the Council's final adoption of the regulation (i.e. the United Kingdom's contention that the unanimity rule should apply to any decision taken by the Council concerning the suspension of aid in the event of one of the essential elements of the regulation being infringed, and Greece's opposition to any type of financial cooperation with Turkey, and its insistance that any suspension of financial aid should be decided by majority voting), as a result of which the Council adopted a new text on which Parliament was reconsulted. Parliament proposed new amendments concerning the following points: - the Community's Mediterranean policy, in addition to helping to promote and entrench democracy and the rule of law, should promote respect for the territorial integrity and external frontiers of the Member States and Mediterranean non-member countries as well as international law; - the MEDA budget included in the general budget of the EC should contain a breakdown of the amounts allocated to each beneficiary country and territory, - the procedure for deciding to suspend aid where a Mediterranean partner is in breach of the obligations under Article 3 (failure to respect human rights, etc) must be approved by qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission and after consultation of the European Parliament before 30 June 1997. �