The EU agenda for the World Summit on Sustainable Development

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The World Summit on Sustainable Development presents both an opportunity and a responsibility for world leaders. The challenge is to deliver on the promises of the Rio Earth Summit and on the Millennium Development goals in order to eradicate poverty, improve living standards based on sustainable patterns of production and consumption and to ensure that the benefits of globalisation are shared by all.

Developed and developing countries share the responsibility for implementing these goals which will require a substantially increased effort, both by countries themselves and by the international community. In the Doha Development Agenda and the Monterrey Consensus a framework was agreed for improving market access, for upgrading multilateral rules to harness globalisation, and for increasing financial assistance for development. The developed countries must now deliver on the commitments they made at Monterrey and the EU, as a major supplier of aid, is fully determined to do so. 

All WTO members should fully respect the commitments made in Doha, including the Doha timetable, and the EU has been prominent, both in the run up to Doha and in the subsequent negotiations, in driving the process forward. The developing countries must also take their responsibilities by improving internal policies and domestic governance and creating an enabling climate for trade and investment. All countries must work together, recognising their common but differentiated responsibilities, to ensure that growth is decoupled from environmental degradation and that the needs of the present generation are satisfied without destroying the capacity of future generations to cater for their needs.

At their recent meeting in Seville on 21/22 June the EU's Heads of State and Government re-affirmed the EU's commitment to a successful outcome at the WSSD and the EU's willingness to continue playing a leading role in the preparation of the summit with a view to reaching a global deal building upon the successful steps of Monterrey and Doha.

What does the EU want from the WSSD?

The EU wants the WSSD to take - after Doha and Monterrey - further steps towards the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, and to build upon them in areas such as sanitation and energy. The WSSD should adopt quantifiable targets and timetables for their implementation. There should be mechanisms for monitoring progress towards these targets. One of the implementing mechanisms could be well-developed partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. There should however be a clear link between the political goals and the partnerships decided by the WSSD so that everyone can see how the political goals are being achieved. The EU wants the WSSD to send a clear political message on the need to make globalisation more sustainable for all and to agree on measures aimed at promoting this goal.

What is the EU proposing to the WSSD?

The EU supports the proposals of the UN Secretary General that the WSSD should make progress in five key areas - water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. More specifically the EU proposes the following targets and actions, in support of the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015:

• To halve the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015. To help deliver this target the EU has developed an EU Water Initiative, which, in partnership with countries and regions, can bring together public and private funds, stakeholders and experts to provide long term, sustainable solutions to problems of water management. Meeting the political goal would make a major contribution to improved health and economic development. The EU has already allocated 1.4 bn Euro for 2003 and is ready to increase this figure for the following years within the context of partners poverty reduction strategies.
• To enhance the use of cleaner, more efficient fossil fuel technologies, to improve energy efficiency and to increase the share of renewable energy sources to at least 15% of primary energy supply by 2010.The provision of affordable, sustainable energy services will have a major impact on poverty, health, economic and social development. The WSSD should adopt an action plan to achieve this goal. The EU is preparing an Energy Initiative to develop partnerships with interested developing countries to identify their energy needs and ways to meet these needs, by making use of EU development co-operation programmes as well as through the involvement of financial institutions and the private sector. The EU has already allocated 700 m Euro for 2003 and is ready to increase this figure for the following years within the context of partners poverty reduction strategies.
• To combat the spread of communicable diseases and increase investment in health care. The EU will increase the volume of development assistance targeting improved health outcomes over the next five years and has already up to € 120 m available for this purpose for 2002. Within the Doha Development Agenda, WTO members should resolve differences on compulsory licenses and work for pharmaceutical products to be made available to the developing world at the lowest possible prices. The EU invites the international community to join partnerships for research on new generations of products. It will continue to actively participate in the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
• To develop a ten-year work programme to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production. Industrialised countries should take the lead in changing their unsustainable behaviour towards more resource efficient production processes and lifestyles. Life-cycle approaches, Eco-labelling and environmental impact assessments are useful tools in that regard. Appropriate means should be made available to help developing countries to move towards the same objective.
• To halt and reverse by 2015 the current loss of natural resources/biodiversity and to manage natural resources in a sustainable and integrated manner. This clear global objective should lead to incentives for local communities, in particular in developing countries, to benefit from the conservation and sustainable use of their rich variety of natural resources. The EU is in the process of reforming its fisheries policy, with the aim of reducing fleets and total catch, and calls on other countries to do the same in order to restore stocks to sustainable levels at the latest by 2015.
• To agree on a positive agenda for globalisation, finance and trade. Important steps to ensure that globalisation benefit all have recently been taken through the Doha Development Agenda and the Monterrey Consensus. The achievements of these Conferences should not be put into question in Johannesburg but we should identify ways and means to build upon them . As an example in Johannesburg, the EU is putting forward a number of positive and supportive measures on trade and investment, outside the scope of Doha Development Agenda and the Monterrey Consensus, which specifically would contribute to sustainable development in developing countries. 
  The EU is suggesting supportive measures on a wide scale ranging from: the integration of sustainability parameters into regional and bilateral agreements and preferential trade schemes, commitments from all countries to duty- and quota free market access for all products originating in least developed countries, the promotion of markets for organic produce, environmentally friendly products and "fair trade", measures to enhance the transparency of domestic trade procedures, the reform of environmentally harmful subsidies and the further development and support for sustainable impact assessments (SIAs).
  In addition, the EU is suggesting a number of actions to enhance the benefits for sustainable development that developing countries can draw from foreign direct investment (FDI), including the promotion of corporate social responsibility and export credits to encourage environmentally and socially sound investment.
• The EU and its Member States have pledged - as a first significant step towards reaching the 0,7% target - to bring the average of ODA/GNI ratio to 0,39% by 2006, which should result in additional annual ODA of about 9 bn Euro as of 2006 and about 22 bn Euro between now and 2006. We have initiated steps to make available the increased ODA announced at the International Conference for Financing for Development and hope that other donors will equally make good on their pledges. We recognise that there is a need to agree on a process through which the follow-up to those pledges can be monitored and evaluated. Recipient and donor countries, as well as international institutions, also have to make a common effort to make ODA more efficient and effective. The EU will intensify its efforts in that regard.
• The EU will pursue efforts to restore debt sustainability in the context of the enhanced HIPC initiative, so that developing countries, and especially the poorest ones, can pursue growth and development unconstrained by unsustainable debt dynamics. The EU remains committed to fully fund the HIPC initiative and pursue debt-swaps as appropriate
• The EU is ready to engage with all partners in exploring ways, on top of opening markets and increasing the level and effectiveness of ODA, of generating new public and innovative sources of finance for development purposes. A further discussion and exploration of the issue of global public goods will be crucial in that context.
• To develop an effective institutional framework for sustainable development at international, regional and national levels. At international level, it is necessary to strengthen the role of ECOSOC in the follow-up to the WSSD, to give more emphasis to implementation issues in the work of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) and to reinforce co-operation on sustainable development between UN bodies, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO. The EU also attaches high priority to the establishment and implementation of national strategies for sustainable development, such as poverty reduction strategies, to the implementation of Rio Principle 10 on access to information and to the development of more effective institutional frameworks for sustainable development at regional and sub-regional level.

The EU wishes to work with all partners to ensure a successful outcome at the WSSD.