EU — Foreign Affairs — 30th Council meeting

Haiti
The Coun­cil dis­cussed the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti, in par­tic­u­lar the state of play fol­low­ing the donors’ con­fer­ence in New York and the prospects for joint pro­gram­ming of devel­op­ment assistance.

At the donors’ con­fer­ence on 31 March, the EU pledged over 1.2bn euros in sup­port of Haiti’s recon­struc­tion and devel­op­ment after a mag­ni­tude 7 earth­quake had hit the coun­try in January. 

Mil­len­ni­um devel­op­ment goals
The Coun­cil held a pol­i­cy debate to pre­pare the EU posi­tion for the UN Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goal (MDG) review sum­mit, which will take place in New York in September.

The pur­pose of the dis­cus­sion was to iden­ti­fy key mes­sages for con­clu­sions to be adopt­ed at the June For­eign Affairs Coun­cil. These con­clu­sions will con­tain the EU’s posi­tion and polit­i­cal mes­sages for the UN event in New York.

The MDGs con­sti­tute the first ever set of shared devel­op­ment goals at inter­na­tion­al lev­el. World lead­ers agreed in 2000 to take deci­sive action to com­bat world pover­ty in its dif­fer­ent dimen­sions by 2015, using time-bound and mea­sur­able tar­gets. With only five years remain­ing before the agreed 2015 dead­line, they will gath­er in New York in Sep­tem­ber for the UN MDG review high lev­el ple­nary meeting. 

Gen­der equal­i­ty and devel­op­ment
Min­is­ters debat­ed gen­der equal­i­ty and devel­op­ment over din­ner, with a view to iden­ti­fy­ing how the EU can best use its pol­i­cy instru­ments to pro­mote women’s rights.

Equal­i­ty between women and men and the pro­mo­tion of women’s rights are not only part of the MDGs but are also a fun­da­men­tal val­ue and prin­ci­ple of the EU. Despite sub­stan­tial progress over the past few decades, women and girls still con­sti­tute the large major­i­ty of the world’s poor­est. They are under-rep­re­sent­ed in gov­ern­ments and deci­sion-mak­ing bod­ies, have few­er oppor­tu­ni­ties with­in the labour and finan­cial mar­kets and are paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than their male counterparts. 

Devel­op­ment in the EU Exter­nal Action Ser­vice
Dur­ing din­ner, the High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive informed devel­op­ment min­is­ters of the progress in estab­lish­ing the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice, with a spe­cial focus on the place of devel­op­ment in the EU’s exter­nal action. 

EU-Alba­nia Sta­bil­i­sa­tion and Asso­ci­a­tion Council

The Coun­cil adopt­ed the EU’s posi­tion and the pro­vi­sion­al agen­da for the sec­ond meet­ing of the EU-Alba­nia Sta­bil­i­sa­tion and Asso­ci­a­tion Coun­cil which will take place in Brus­sels on 11 May 2010.

EU-Tunisia Asso­ci­a­tion Coun­cil
The Coun­cil approved the EU’s posi­tion for the eighth meet­ing of the EU-Tunisia Asso­ci­a­tion Coun­cil to be held in Brus­sels on 11 May 2010.