Strasbourg, 13/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday at a press conference in Strasbourg Commissioner Louis Michel presented the three communications on the millennium objectives adopted on the same day by the European Commission (EUROPE 8925). Mr Michel was accompanied by President José Manuel Barroso who had come to speak on the importance development policy had for the Commission. The Commission president said the package constituted, “a strong message that development policy should be an essential element of external Union policy”. He also highlighted the four points around which the Commission strategy would be based: rapidly increasing development aid to 0.7% of GNP after an initial stage at 0.56% in 2010; improve quality of aid by drawing on added value of other policies; better coordinated EU action and of its Member States; making Africa a priority. Mr Barroso highlighted the last point and underlined that there was no fatalism involved in this. He referred to the African Union and NEPAD, “In Africa change is also possible…We want to be a partner for positive developments”. After pointing out that Europe provided 55% of development aid, Louis Michel alluded to Europe's particular responsibility. The Commissioner for development said that, “We can take a development leadership role…do more; do better and to it more quickly to fulfil the millennium objectives by 2015”. He appealed for a genuine speeding up and use of “development multiplication” tools. Mr Michel explained that if this speed-up did not take place, it would be necessary to wait till 2147 to reduce poverty by half, as planned in the millennium objectives. He appealed for major infrastructure projects to take place in Africa. Louis Michel underlined that it was the first time that the Commission had federated all the activities in the development service, together with a revision of the mid-term objectives agreed to by all the Commissioners.