EU Presidency Statement - Economic and environmental issues

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), the other associated countries (Cyprus, Malta and Turkey) align themselves with this statement.

The European Union would firstly like to thank the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) for the report on its second session, which corresponds fully to Economic and Social Council Resolution 1999/67. The significance of the report prompts all the more regret at the considerable delay in having it translated into the various official languages of the United Nations, for which we should like to receive explanations from the Secretariat.

The European Union has noted with interest the Committee's ideas on both the issue of the high-level segment of this substantive session and the outlines for a future international development strategy for the first decade of the new millennium. These ideas are a useful addition to the other reports on the same subjects submitted to the Council.

Mr. Chairman,

The Committee's recommendations regarding the criteria for identifying and the list of least developed countries (LDCs) were awaited with particular interest this year. On the first point, the European Union considers that the explanations given by the Chairman and experts of the Committee have provided answers to the technical questions raised by various delegations and that the contacts organized with the international organizations dealing with these matters have also succeeded in allaying certain doubts expressed on various sides. We consider that the replacement of the economic diversification index with the economic vulnerability index undoubtedly represents progress as it involves direct consideration of the vulnerability of countries. As regards the debate on the inclusion in the criteria of an explicit reference to environmental vulnerability, it seems that discussions will have to continue before a satisfactory methodology can be developed and a sufficient number of reliable data can become available. It is clear, however, that the new criteria proposed by the Committee for Development Policy might have to evolve in the future.

Regarding the list of LDCs, the European Union notes the two changes proposed by the Committee, namely the inclusion of Senegal and the graduation of the Maldives. As a committee of experts was mandated to carry out this task, we consider it is not for us to comment on their conclusions. We are, however, sensitive to the serious problems the Maldives have to face.

Lastly, the European Union would like to express its agreement with the topics for consideration suggested by the Committee for its future sessions: review of the criterion of population size (limit of 75 million), the possibility of including countries with economies in transition and the matter of the justification for applying more restrictive criteria for graduation from than inclusion in the list of LDCs are all important issues which deserve the attention of the CDP experts.

Thank you for your attention.

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