European envoys cautious in appraising performance of new government

Stress govt-opposition partnership in parliament to deal with important issues
European envoys here Thursday expressed cautious optimism in appraising the performance of the new government, stressing the need for government-opposition partnership in parliament to deal with important issues like impacts of the global recession, climate change and counterterrorism.
Nine European Ambassadors and High Commissioners came up with their observations on varied issues, starting from economic meltdown to climate change, trial of war criminals to ruling party-opposition relations and counterterrorism to extrajudicial killing at a news conference held at Hotel Sheraton marking the Europe Day on May 9.
Delegation of European Commission Ambassador Dr Stefan Frowein, who chaired the briefing session, said it is important in parliamentary democracy that government and opposition work together for betterment of the country.
He noted that although the present opposition has got more than 30 per cent of popular votes in the last general election, it has less number of seats in parliament because of the election system.
Frowein, who has closely watched the uncanny political developments in Bangladesh since the pre-1/11 changeover, said government needs to give necessary space to the opposition as he made a disquieting observation that the current situation suggests that more difficulties are ahead.
“Discussions, debates and critical analyses of the problems should be there in a healthy democracy,” the leading European Union diplomat said and hoped healthy debate and dialogue would take place in this country.
Swedish Ambassador Britt Falkman Hagstrom, who is current chair of the EU in Bangladesh, said they like to see lively debate in parliament and solutions to the problems. “Too much confrontational politics is not a solution,” the envoy said.
Dutch Ambassador Bea Ten Tusscher referred to parliamentary practice in the Netherlands and said a consensus has to be emerged from government-opposition dialogues on issues of national interest like the impact of climate change which has posed a threat to Bangladesh.
On the performance of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s four-month-old government most of the Ambassadors observed that it is too early to comment on that. But they said: so far, so good.
On this score, Ambassador Frowein said compared with the past caretaker government it may seem that the present government is slow because the past caretaker government had no parliament-bureaucrats and technocrats did some things in some areas quicker.
But, he said, the present government has a full-swing parliament behind and it has to respect certain procedure and interest of the vast electorates. Therefore, he said, things are “naturally slower”.
The EU envoy said during meetings with the Prime Ministers and other Ministers, they said that they are very supportive of the government’s election manifesto and “we will be observing how thing is going in practice”.
He said, “There is lot of things on plate. There have been starts, and many did not start as fast as earnest. We’re cautiously optimistic. We’re supportive of the government objectives through our multilateral and bilateral programs.”
On this point Swiss Ambassador Mrs Britt Hagstorm, Danish Ambassador Einar H Jensen, German Ambassador Frank Meyke and acting British High Commissioner Duncan Norman made almost a similar observation-that four months is a very short time for a long period of this government elected for five years.
They said parliament is functioning, lot of debates taking place on government decisions and agenda and people are coming up with their reactions at different lively debates, which are encouraging and “good signal”.
Asked if the economic recession will harm the government’s ambitious targets, Ambassador Frowein said indications so far show that Bangladesh has not yet been threatened by the fallout but cautioned that the next fiscal year may be difficult for Bangladesh. And, like other countries, it may be difficult to implement the high agenda of the government.
He, however, assured that the EU would stand beside Bangladesh in its difficult period and help overcome the future crisis to be caused by the recession. He said at the G-20 meeting in London EU countries strongly insisted that the developing and LDC countries must be taken into account and more aid should go to the worst-hit developing countries.
On the question of trial of war criminals, one of the high-stake agenda of the new government, Ambassador Frowein said the EU supports the government move to bring the 1971 war criminals to justice as it is one of the ruling party’s election pledges. However, he said the trial must follow the international standards.
About the human rights situation and crossfire, the Ambassadors said Foreign Minister Dipu Moni at a recent meeting in Geneva committed zero tolerance to the extrajudicial killing. “But, if it happens, we will be worried”, the European envoys said and suggested that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.
On EU help to Bangladesh on climate change, the diplomats observed that Bangladesh needs help from the developed nations to enhance her adaptation and mitigation capability. They said Bangladesh has good strategy of action and adaptation plan on climate change and the country needs to raise its voice at the upcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change to have a better deal.
Earlier in her written remarks, Ambassador Britt Hagstrom said European countries have been hard hit by the recession and for Bangladesh the effect would most likely not be fully known until the yearend.
She said the EU is a committed trade and development partner of Bangladesh as EU imports from Bangladesh amounted to 5 billion Euros last year, and development-cooperation disbursement amounted to 440 million Euros (Tk 4030 crore) as grants.

Courtesy of The Bangladesh Today