(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) -Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Eng. Imad Al Fakhoury held a meeting with Nicholas Westcott, Managing Director for Middle East and North Africa at the European External Action Service.
Westcott is currently in a visit to Jordan to follow up on fields of cooperation between the EU and Jordan, and to enhance bilateral relations within the framework of the Euro-Jordanian Association Agreement and the European Neighbourhood Policy.
The meeting was attended by the ambassador of the European Commission to Amman Andrea Matteo Fontana.
The minister expressed Jordan's keenness on developing relations with the European Union in a balanced way that serves the better interests of the two partners.
He also extended the thanks of Jordan's government and people for the assistance that the EU provides to Jordan, which helped to implement a number of high priority projects and to support the budget.
The minister also thanked the EU for the additional assistance pledged to meet the needs of Syrian refugees hosting communities.
Al Fakhoury briefed the visiting official on the political reforms that the kingdom has embarked on, especially the latest reform legislations that the parliament endorsed to enhance people's participation in decision making processes. On top of those legislations come the political parties' law, municipal elections law and the decentralization law.
He added that discussions of the new draft law on elections would start with the upcoming ordinary session of the parliament.
The minister also pointed out the kingdom's endeavours to enhance transparency, good governance and combating corruption that resulted in endorsing the national integrity covenant. The parliament is currently considering a new law for integrity and anti-corruption. All of those reforms, he added, are structured on the amendment of one third of the kingdom's constitution, which resulted in the creation of new democratic institutions like the constitutional court and the independent elections commission, and in the enhancement of the judicial power by passing the law on the judicial independence.
Al Fakhoury also briefed the European official of the economic developments in Jordan. He confirmed that Jordan is committed to its ambitious reform program according to Jordan 2025 document, the executive development programme 2016-2018 and the governorates' development programme 2016-2018. It is also committed to achieve the goals of sustainable development that were recently adopted by the UN. The goal behind this, he indicated, is to increase the rates of comprehensive and sustainable growth and to create enterprises in the value added sectors that generate job opportunities for Jordanians within a stable macro-economic framework and a competitive business environment.
He also pointed out the main legislations that were passed and are in force now, such as the income tax law, the public private sectors' partnership law and the law on renewable energy and efficient energy.
Al Fakhoury spoke about the National Response Plan to the Syrian crisis 2016-2018 that was launched under the patronage of the prime minister. He underlined the importance of providing funding for the plan to enable Jordan to meet the requirements of hosting Syrian refugees, enhance the resilience of refugee-hosting communities and the budget requirements to alleviate the burdens it suffers from.
In this context, the two sides discussed proposals to adopt a comprehensive framework of dealing with the repercussions of the Syrian crisis.
This framework, they agreed, aims at developing programs that enable Jordan to bear the burdens of hosting Syrian refugees and to get assistance in the form of grants and soft funding instruments because it is affected by the Syrian and other regional crises. The framework also aims at attracting job-generating investments and setting up employment projects in the affected communities in cooperation with the EU. Minister Al Fakhoury called on the European official to help Jordan adopt innovative and extraordinary in this respect.
The European official expressed EU's admiration of political and economic reforms carried out under the leadership of His Majesty, which made Jordan a model to follow especially in light of the regional events.
Mr. Westcott also expressed his understanding of the huge burdens that Jordan shoulders as a result of the influx of Syrian refugees that affected host communities.
He stressed that he will convey the ideas brought up by Jordanian officials to the EU officials in Brussels to consider ways of increasing support in all possible ways to Jordan in the coming period to enable it to surpass the repercussions of crises and to continue its path of reform.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.