Oganisation of the European Public Campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity (spring 1988)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 1 July 1987.See Doc. 5753, report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development.
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Recalling the Lisbon Declaration on ‘‘North-South : Europe's role'' in which the proposal for a European Public Campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity originated, and the subsequent support expressed for the campaign by both the Assembly and the European Parliament ;
2. Welcoming the positive response given by the Committee of Ministers to this proposal and its decision to set up a European Organising Committee to plan the campaign for spring 1988 and to co-ordinate it at European level ;
3. Noting with satisfaction that the Commission of the European Communities has agreed to participate in the project ;
4. Conscious that the fate of the countries of the North is intimately bound up with the future of those in the South by a complex web of economic, social, cultural, ecological and political relations ;
5. Stressing the need for increased public awareness of this interdependence and Europe's shared responsibility to play a more constructive role in helping to solve the economic and social problems which confront humanity, and fully supporting the proposal of the European Organising Committee that the campaign, both at European and at national level, should focus on the following issues :
North-South trade relations ;
agriculture ;
natural resources and environment ;
debt and finance ;
development assistance ;
employment ;
socio-cultural relations ;
6. Stressing that the key actors in the campaign should be the non-governmental organisations, the media, schools and local authorities, which deserve the full support of governments and parliaments in the preparation and implementation of campaign activities ;
7. Recalling its recent debates on the debt situation of the developing countries and on Africa's food crisis, and the resolutions adopted on these occasions,
8. Resolves :
8.1 to devote a major debate to the campaign issues in January 1988 with the participation of the various committees concerned ;
8.2 to organise, in close co-operation with the European Parliament, a parliamentary conference at the close of the campaign, with the participation of leading personalities from the Third World and non-governmental organisations, to review the follow-up given to the Lisbon Declaration and to draw lessons from the campaign for future action and for dealing with the different areas of North-South interdependence on a day-to-day basis ;
8.3 calls on the governments of Council of Europe member states to give sufficient financial support to the European Organising Committee as well as to the national organising committees for the preparatory work of the North-South campaign in 1987 and the campaign activities themselves in 1988 both at European and at national level ;
9. Invites the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to lend sufficient administrative support for the campaign in 1987 and in 1988.
