Speech in the debate on the Urgent Resolution on Madagascar, in session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Angola, 2 December:
Dear Co-Presidents and colleagues, allow me two comments in commenting the present resolution:
In recent years the prevention of violent conflicts was a priority of the EU's external policy.
However the Madagascar crisis once again points on a "NON hands-on attitude" towards countries were the situation is particular tense. The EU has become the expert of post-conflict initiatives.
The EU needs an improved pro active attitude in dealing with tensions and insecurity in order to prevent conflict situations and the Human Rights abuses they entail. We should do better than all sorts of well meant academic round tables and interesting studies.
In post Lisbon times we expect a more ambitious and effective foreign affairs policy. So the freshly appointed "foreign minister" has a lot to improve....
Secondly I wish to underline my reservation to the method of "power-sharing" such as reached by Madagascar's current and former leaders in Addis Ababa and so welcomed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
Over the past decade political instability in Africa was solved with rival parties sharing power. The recent deals in Kenya and Zimbabwe (in previous years in Liberia, Nigeria, Burundi, Sierra Leone, among others) show that power sharing could legitimize fraudulent behavior by the ruling elites. In fact, despite Kenyan President Kibaki's and his Zimbabwean counterpart Mugabe's manipulation of their elections, power-sharing deals legitimized them to take the highest seats in the government.
I argue against power sharing because it undermines the basic pillars of democracy. The competition between political parties and the presence of organized political oppositions are replaced by coalitions that have little in common. These governments are unable to deliver reforms for development and effective democratization.
I do not go along with Libyan President Gaddafi that the specifics of African societies make multi-party democracy impossible in the continent.
I agree with Botswana President Ian Khama, who defined the agreements in Kenya and Zimbabwe and presently in Madagascar as "bad precedents for the democracy in the continent."