Strasbourg, 10/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - Following the recommendations of its rapporteur, Dutch Labour MEP Max van den Berg, on 6 April, the EP wants to see the establishment of a blacklist of corrupt regimes in developing countries in order to help boost the effectiveness of EU aid and deal with corruption (which siphons off USD 148 billion a year, 25% of African GDP). Max van den Berg also stressed the need to exclude corrupting multinationals from EU calls for tender. The European Parliament urges EU Member States to ratify the OECD Conventions of 1997 on corruption of public agents and the 2003 UN Convention against corruption, and calls for parliamentary and civil society controls in the countries in question. Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel broadly shared these concerns and pointed out that in the case of fraud or corruption, the EU has the option of excluding companies from calls for tender or of suspending projects (as was done in the case of a project in Zimbabwe). The President of the EP's Development Committee, Luisa Morgantini (GUE/NGL), stressed the responsibility of industrialised countries and companies, while Michal Gahler (EPP-ED, Germany) said he was in favour of 'naming and shaming'.. We should sweep our own doorsteps, agreed French Green MEP Marie-Helène Aubert, adding that corruption often centres on weapons, oil and forestry resources. Why should the EU fund governments in countries with resources that should in theory enable them to have a considerable budget at their disposal but which do not use it in the interests of their people?, she asked. British Conservative Nirji Deva slammed over-regulation, saying it had been a tool of colonialism and such 'paper power' had become the mother of all corruption because rules have simply piled up over time to the detriment of openness.