Brussels, 27/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - Members of the parliamentary development committee, chaired by Luisa Morgantini (GUE/NGL, Italy), would like to draw up a black list of regimes and representatives from corrupt governments in developing countries, in an effort to enhance the efficiency of EU development policy, the largest donor of public development aid in the world. In this context, MEPs followed the line of Max Van den Berg (PES, Netherlands), author of the own initiative report adopted by unanimity on 20 February. The report underlines that according to African Union estimates, corruption accounts for 25% of Africa's annual GDP - $148 billion and holds back economic recovery of African countries. Members of the parliamentary committee consider that all the actors have a role to play in the fight against corruption - political decision makers, civil servants, governments, civil society, media and multinationals and that the international community should also have its word. MEPs are calling on Member States to ratify the OECD Convention of 1997 on corruption of public agents, and the UN Convention of 2003 against corruption. They are also calling on the Commission and Member States to set up an “international system of black lists to help the banks avoid making substantial loans to corrupt regimes and government representatives”. In developing countries, MEPs want Parliamentarians who possess budgetary powers like those in the EU, to have more weight in monitoring public finances. They highlighted the complementary role played by civil society, which should establish surveillance circuits and demand that the government set an inspection system with balance sheets. They also appealed to the European Commission to support this process by making some of the budgetary aid available to these democratic monitoring circuits. At a European level, MEPs want more transparency in the EU budgetary support programmes and the publication of information on aid spent in beneficiary countries. They would like to see Member States that have significant financial centres on their territories to take legal and administrative measures that guarantee repatriation to the countries of origin if funds are acquired illegally.