Brussels, 24/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - Increasing official development aid (ODA), tackling fraud and money laundering, addressing illicit financial flows and tax evasion, good governance and human rights: these are priorities common to the European Parliament's development committee and the European Commission for the development agenda.
MEPs and European International Cooperation and Development Commissioner Neven Mimica made this clear at an exchange of views in Brussels on Tuesday 23 June. “We are counting on you to debate these various points and to draft the EU's policy response on sustainable development goals (SDGs). The Commission is considering how best to implement the SDGs in the framework of the agenda for change” (our translation throughout), the commissioner said. Acknowledging that ODA is the area in which the EU has not met its commitments, he added: “We have to increase our level of ambition and encourage other partners to do likewise. The Commission is considering how to make our aid more efficient from 2016”.
In the view of Ivo Stier (EPP, Croatia), the issue of good governance and tackling illicit financial flows is “the priority of priorities” for which “it would be good if the Commission presented a comprehensive strategy”. There is room for improvement for the ACP countries, he said, suggesting that “the Commission propose new instruments to promote good governance and tackle corruption”.
On behalf of the S&D Group, Norbert Neuser (Germany) highlighted three priorities: the SDGs, refugee tragedies and the post-Cotonou framework. Saying that it was worrying that “Finland intends to cut its aid by 43% and Sweden, too”, he wants “the Commission to find binding ways of opposing any assaults on development aid”. “Several member states continue to reduce their ODA”, railed Charles Goerens (ALDE, Luxembourg), drawing attention to the ambiguities of the Council of the EU which says that ODA should be increased to 0.44% in 2015 and that the EU should make €38.58 billion available when 0.7% is a commitment that has been made. “The member states are hiding behind that ambiguity”, he said. The other ambiguity in his view relates to the mixture of development aid and aid on climate action.
Post-Cotonou: a Green Paper in the autumn. Mimica said that the post-Cotonou partnership would implement the economic partnership agreements, take account of “the increasingly numerous challenges in a multi-polar world”, build on “our historic and binding links with the 79 ACP countries”, and take account of the new players and developments in the partner countries themselves “in which regional cooperation has developed with sub-regional organisations”. The geographic scope of this genuine political partnership must be studied. The debate will be opened in the autumn with publication of a Green Paper. This will be followed by a joint communication from the Commission and the European External Action Service in 2016. (Aminata Niang)