Case: Policy coherence in general

11-12-2008 The Coherence King 2009

On December 10th, 2008, the EU Coherence Programme - predecessor of Fair Politics -organized the EU Coherence Awards Ceremony, at the European Parliament. All MEPs who had earned a coherence star in the past few years were invited to come to the ceremony to receive their prize. As in every award ceremony, there can only be one winner, the winner of the EU Coherence Awards, MEP Thijs Berman, was proclaimed; Coherence King 2009.

The EU Coherence Programme monitored the efforts of the MEPs to enhance Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) during the past three years. By the end of this year, the project, in its current form, is coming to an end, and therefore we felt that it was time for us to thank the MEPs who contributed to raising awareness on the subject of PCD.

The Ceremony started off at 10.30, with a speech of the Director of the Evert Vermeer Foundation; Peter Heintze, in which he explained the aim of our programme and the Ceremony. He  emphasised some of the activities undertaken by the EU Coherence Programme in the past few years.

After the opening speech, the EU Coherence Brussels team (Else & Suzan) took over, and kicked off the actual Award Ceremony, with a short speech on every political groups efforts to enhance PCD. Of course we were not able to hand the prizes personally to all of the nominated MEPs (40 in total). Therefore we called upon every political groups winner to come forward, receive their prize and those of their colleagues from the same political group.  Each group winner was also asked to say a few words on the topic or area they had been focussing on with regard to PCD.

The first nominee to be called forward was Mr. Adamos Adamou on behalf of the Confederated Group of European United Left- Nordic Green Left. Mr Adamou earned his prize for addressing the issue of clinical trials that are being carried out on people in low-income and developing countries, sometimes without their consent. He made it very clear that the practice of conducting clinical trials in a way that does comply with the ethical guidelines for Good Clinical Practice, is incompatible with the EUs commitments to supporting health in developing countries.

The second nominee to be awarded was Ms. Hélène Goudin of the Independence/ Democracy group. This small political group obtained 5 coherence stars throughout the past few years and all of these stars were earned by one person in the name of Hélène Goudin. Ms. Goudin earned the coherence stars by asking both written and oral questions on the EUs fishery agreements with third countries. The EU Coherence Programme has developed two case studies on the Fisheries Agreements; these agreements have been fiercely criticized for various reasons, ranging from overexploitation of natural resources to conflicts with local fisheries and harm to local fishery industries. Thanks to Ms. Hélène Goudin attention was drawn to the inconsistencies within the EUs fisheries policy. With the five stars she earned, she reached the second place in the overall ranking.

The third group to be nominated was the ALDE group, which in total received 7 coherence stars, mainly in the area of illegal arms trade.  The winner of the ALDE group Mr. Johan van Hecke who won 3 stars on behalf of this group, could unfortunately not be there, as he was stuck in traffic. Fortunately Ms. Fiona Hall was at the Ceremony and accepted the prizes on behalf of the ALDE group. She also shortly addressed the fact that the EU code of conduct on Arms trade had been adopted as a common position by the Council last Monday the 8th of December. She also pointed out that, according to her, the EU Coherence Programme should not fail to consider this an important achievement, as due to the pressure felt as a result of our activities, she said, she and her colleagues at the European Parliament were constantly reminded of the importance of the topic of PCD, and to keep putting the item on the political agenda. 

After these encouraging words by Ms. Fiona Hall, the next political group to be awarded was the Greens/European Free Alliance group. The Winner of this group was  Mr. Raul Romeva I Rueda, who earned 4 stars on behalf of his group. In total the Greens won 8 coherence stars. The questions posted by Mr. Romeva towards the Council and Commission concerned both intellectual property rights and arms trade. When we asked him to come forward in order to accept his prize, he also expressed his enthusiasm about the EU Coherence initiative and of course the fact that the Council had now adopted a common position on illegal arms trade.

The European Peoples Party and European Democrats Group within the Parliament won 12 coherence stars on our website. The winner of this group Mr. Karim, on numerous occasions, urged the Commission to take into account that a growing demand for biofuels could result in a rise in prices of agricultural products, and could have a detrimental impact on developing countries. His questions were very much related to our case study on biofuels, and we are therefore thankful that Mr. Karim helped to raise this issue among the other European institutions.

The final group to be addressed during the Ceremony was the Socialist Group of the European Parliament. The socialists won in total  24 coherence stars. Among the socialists, the most active MEP has undoubtedly been the Coherence King; Thijs Berman, who won 6 of these stars on behalf of his group. A king is not a king without a Crown of course, and therefore as a prize the Coherence King received a crown made of marzipan. During his acceptance speech, Thijs Berman noted that being coherent is hardly possible for a human being. As there is always more than one matter of importance valuable to a person. As an example he mentioned that there are two kinds of solidarities, in the case of for instance agricultural policies, one feels solidarity with the European farmers on the one hand, and solidarity with farmers within the third world on the other. Whom to choose for? How can one act in solidarity without portraying the other?  How could you be solidary to both?

The final words of the Ceremony were spoken by Françoise Moreau, head of the PCD Unit of DG Development, who was also present during the Ceremony. She highlighted progress made on Policy Coherence for Development since 2005, the priorities of the PCD Unit, and the prospects for the future.

The EU Coherence Programme team hopes that all of the nominees enjoyed the Ceremony and did eventually guess the meaning of the marzipan prizes in the form of a syringe (for the nominees who contributed to the TRIPs case), brains (blue card), nemo the fish (fisheries), weapon (arms trade), corn (biofuels) and two shaking hands (the EPAs).