Minister Väyrynen’s initiative for transatlantic partnership for development received unanimous support from the EU Ministerial Meeting in Prague

Commissioner Michel commended Väyrynen’s initiative

Press release 32/2009
30 January, 2009

This week, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen made a new initiative that would help implement the goals of Finland’s Development Policy Programme through wide international cooperation. The initiative aims at increasingly effective efforts to eradicate poverty by means of socially, economically and ecologically sustainable development.

On Friday, the EU Development Ministers heard Väyrynen’s presentation of the initiative for closer cooperation in development policy issues between the European Union and the United States. The objective is to establish a Transatlantic Partnership for Sustainable Development.

Minister Väyrynen told the Ministerial Meeting that the United States has long been interested in development policy cooperation with the EU. According to Väyrynen, American views have been close to the ideas expressed by the Nordic+ Group led by the Nordic countries. This became clear, for instance, during Väyrynen’s talks with representatives of USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Washington last summer.

“The plans of the new Administration in the United States match well with the ideas presented in the Finnish initiative,” Väyrynen estimated when addressing the meeting. “This is therefore a very good time to make such an initiative,” he stressed. The Development Ministers gave their unanimous support to Väyrynen’s proposal that transatlantic development policy cooperation be included on the agenda of the following EU-US meetings as a separate item. Louis Michel, Member of the EU Commission responsible for development policy, commended Väyrynen’s initiative to the meeting and raised it as the most important issue of the whole Prague Ministerial Meeting.

In addition to enhancing the development cooperation, the partners would also assist the poorest developing countries to achieve advantageous results in global negotiations on development, trade and the environment. At the moment, the voice of the poorest developing countries often remains unheard in such negotiations.

Further information: Director General Ritva Koukku-Ronde, Department for Development Policy, tel. +358 40 830 4868, and Special Adviser Ossi Martikainen tel. +358 40 592 6769