Strasbourg, 29/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - As a follow-up to German Green Party MEP and Parliamentary rapporteur, Heide Rühle, the European Parliament has given the Commission a discharge on the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds (EDF) for the 1999 budget, whilst recognising that development co-operation is in need of urgent reform. This reform will consist of a new definition of the policies and priorities involved in development aid, incorporating the objectives set at the International Summits for eradicating poverty; better communication between the Commission's services and Community policies on external aid; a more strict application of Article 177 of the Amsterdam Treaty on the complementarity of Member States and the Commission's development policies; an adequate number of personnel and financial resources at the Commission's disposal for reaching development aid objectives; a reorganisation in aid management both at a Brussels level and in the field in order to simplify procedures, integrate the co-operation cycle, implement a balanced structure between the Commission's external relations services (with one person in charge of the development aid) and greater management transparency. The European Parliament has again called for the EDF to be included in the budget, given that hitherto it has not been subject to any parliamentary inspection.
The European Parliament has been concerned by the fact that the ACP part of the contracts financed from development funds does not even represent 25%, and that the lion's share of these contracts is generally awarded to private companies and EU Member State organisations, particularly from France and Italy. The Parliament would like the Commission to explain why for years the Ivory Coast received more Development Fund loans than other countries even though it is a smaller country. It also supports the six Court of Auditors' recommendations (Report No5/2001 published in OJ C 257 of 14 September 2001) on the reorientation of controls on aid and co-ordination with other donors. It points out that in 1999, the Court identified an amount of almost 10 billion Euro in available and unused loans, the biggest part of which had been promised to some countries and regions, without having fixed any payment deadlines.