Brussels, 11/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of the international United Nations conference on financing development (21/22 March 2002 in Monterrey, Mexico), the European Parliament has stressed the urgency of reversing the alarming trend of a drastic cut in official development aid (ODA) and is calling on the European Union to ensure it has the means to make the conference a success, which is what the EU is aiming for. The common resolution adopted last Thursday in Strasbourg regrets that over the last ten years, ODA in the richest countries has reached its lowest level yet (0.22% of GDP, well below the 0.7% recommended by the United Nations since 1974). Arguing that since the events of 11 September, the provision of adequate development aid is more important than ever, the EP regrets that the draft consensus document prepared during the preparations for the Monterrey conference does not include any binding commitment or a timetable.
It therefore calls on the Council of the European Union to draw up as a matter of urgency during the Spanish Presidency a firm timetable for bringing each Member State's contribution up to the 0.7% GDP level; welcomes the fact that that the ECOFIN Council instructed the Commission to seek other ways of funding development; and hopes that the EU will present the conclusions of this analysis to the Monterrey conference. The European Parliament is also calling on the EU to do its utmost to ensure that the vital issue of mobilising additional resources for the provision of services of general interest (particularly in terms of combating the diseases linked with poverty) is also discussed at the Mexican conference.
Feeling that the initiative to cut the debt levels of the most highly indebted countries has only helped a handful of countries and is taking too long to implement, Parliament is calling on the European Commission to put forward a proposal to convert the debt of the poorest countries into contractual measures aimed at promoting useful investment - which can be monitored - for the benefit of the population.
Parliament also feels that the EU should grant 70% of its co-operation and development budget to the poorest and least developed countries and has again called for the "budgetisation" of the European Development Fund (EDF) which would create a transparent overall financial framework for all the EU's development cooperation activities. It highlights the importance of micro-credit for micro-enterprises and SMEs, particularly for women in rural areas.
Believing that trade is the only important external source of funding for development, the EP recognises that it is important to break down trade barriers and subsidies that distort trade particularly in areas like agriculture which are of particular importance with regard to developing countries' exports. In this connection, it calls on companies in rich countries to take the social impact of their operations into account in development countries and also the repercussions in terms of sexual equality, education, public health and the environment.
Commissioner Poul Nielson calls for tangible action to double GDA in next ten years
Addressing MEPs, the Development Policy Commissioner Poul Nielson emphasised the importance placed by the European Commission on the Monterrey confidence, wanting it to lead to "tangible action", since he argued that the international context meant that one could not simply continue with business as usual. Highlighting that the current crisis would have an impact on world economic development and that once again it would be the poor who would pay the highest price, he said that the challenge at Monterrey would be to ensure that globalisation acted in the interests of the poor rather than to their detriment. Convinced that this could only be achieved on the precondition that industrialised countries seized the opportunity of the conference on the funding of development to forcefully confirm renewed commitment to combating poverty, the Commissioner said that they should agree on tangible action to double the flows of public development aid over the next ten years in order to meet the millennium development targets (cutting poverty by half by 2015, Ed). He added that public development aid also had to be effective and that the Commission's work on the release of aid had to be finished in time for the conference.