Development cooperation: Asian and Latin America countries ALA

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Marieke SANDERS-TEN HOLTE (ELDR, NL, making several amendments to the Commission's proposal. (Please see the summary of 01/07/03.) In addition, the house made the following principal amendments: - a new recital stating that it is the responsibilitylaity of the EU institutions and Member States to avoid the potentially adverse economic, social and environmental impacts on developing countries of certain other Community policies, such as agriculture, fisheries, energy, transport, internal market and trade. The Regulation should ensure coherence between internal and external policies in order to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty; - a new recital stating that special attention should be given to improving the implementation of cooperation with Asian and Latin American countries, achieving a sound balance between financial resources allocated and absorption capacity, as well as to reducing outstanding commitments; - the allocation of resources as well as the choice of eligible Asian and Latin American countries should be reviewed and suitable criteria should be established to reflect a country's population, internal inequalities, per capita income, poverty, export potential and economic performance, for their eligibility to become either 'Asian partners' or 'Latin American partners'; - the role of non-state actors to the development process should be recognised. Non-state actors include private sector, economic and social partners, including trade union organisations, and civil society. Non-state actors should be involved in consultation on cooperation policies and strategies and on political dialogue; - they should also be provided with financial resources, comprising up to 15% of the total funds available, in order to support local development processes. In addition they should be involved in the implementation of cooperation projects where these actors have a comparative advantage, and be provided with capacity-building support in critical areas; - measures must be taken to encourage the widest participation of natural and legal persons of developing countries, and in particular least developed countries, in the performance of contracts financed under this Regulation. Therefore, for works contracts of a value of less than EUR 5 000 000, tenderers of developing countries, provided that at least one quarter of the capital stock and management staff originates from one or more developing countries, must be accorded a 10% price preference where tenders of an equivalent economic, technical and administrative quality are compared; - for tenderers of least developed countries, the price preference will be 15% where the same conditions are met; - for supply contracts, tenderers of developing countries who offer supplies of at least 50% in contract value of developing country origin, will be accorded a 15% price preference. For tenderers of least developed countries, the preference will be 20% where the same conditions are met; - for service contracts, preference must be given to experts, institutions or consultancy firms from developing countries; - there are further specific provisions on consortia containing European partners as well as subcontracting.�