Deputy Foreign Minister Pistelli participated in a meeting of the Development Council in Brussels, during which he spoke on the strategic goals of the post-2015 agenda, post-MDGs and the EU’s position in the multilateral negotiating process of the United Nations; on EU resources for aid to developing countries from 2014 to 2020 following the European parliamentary elections; and on Europe’s Great Lakes strategy and humanitarian assistance in the Syrian crisis.
Regarding the post-2015 agenda, the deputy minister underscored the highly ambitious nature of achieving a “North-South development grammar shared by small and large countries alike, universal in extension and holistic in approach, capable of channelling public and private financial instruments and, at the same time, comprehensible and adequately communicable, within and without the Union, to its civil society and to national parliaments”.
The deputy minister responded to the need that emerged during the meeting for the EU’s deeper reflection on its position in international negotiations. He received a warm reception for his proposal that Italy hold an informal meeting in July 2014, at the start of its EU presidency term, to prepare the terrain for the September meeting in New York, back-to-back with a major event open to civil society and major public and private international donors.
He added that Italy was also committed to promoting a new “development grammar” within the context of the 2015 Milan EXPO, which would be a major showcase for the Union as a global actor in the field of food security and nutrition. Pistelli then underscored how development cannot take root in the absence of a stable political framework that ensures, democratic principles, the rule of law and peace and human rights, drawing the EU and its Member States’ attention to the “fatal triangle of political instability, under-development and migration”, and expressing the hope that in 2014, under the Greek and Italian presidencies, reflection would turn toward a more effective response the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa, not least in light of the tragedy of Lampedusa.
