Brussels, 02/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Union is on the right track to reach the objectives it set out on increasing the average level of public development aid to 0.7% of GDP by 2015. but a lot remains to be done because this overall good result hides unequal performances among member states, some of them lagging behind significantly. This is the message the European Commission will be sending in a communication it will be adopting on 4 April on the follow-up of commitments on whether to stick to development funding promises. This communication is part of a wider package aimed to push member states to put the commitments they made in 2005 and 2006 into practice. These commitments are aimed at improving the effectiveness of European aid and bringing their aid to trade up to €1bn by 2010 in view of granting a hefty chunk to ACP countries (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) and facilitating implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA).
Although at the Barcelona European Council in 2020) (before the UN conference in Monterrey, March 2002), the EU made a commitment of reaching a 0.7% target in 2015 for older member states (and 0.33% for the new member states), it also set out a compromise target of reaching a collective target of 0.39% in 2006. The deadline for this compromise target has already expired: the EU average was 0.43% of its GDP (the US only had 0.17%, Japan, 0.25%, Australia and Canada 0.30%), €48bn or an annual €100 per citizen. This result has put the EU at the top of the donors' league in public development aid in the world, accounting for 57% of PDA worldwide.
A source close to the European Commission pointed out that, “without wanting to create a beauty contest, this excellent result collectively hides individual differences. Some member states gave more than 1% of their GDP. Another good piece of news: new have doubled their PDA since accession”.
The EU could be proud of this result which is mainly down to the very good performances of ten old member states in 2006. The clear leader is Sweden with 1.03%, followed by Luxembourg (0.89%), the Netherlands (0.81%) Denmark (0.80%), Ireland (0.53%), the UK (0.52%), Belgium (0.50%), Austria (0.48%), France (0.47%) and Finland (0.39%). Germany (0.36%) and Spain (0.32%) were under-target but coming close to meeting it. The worst performance was by Greece (0.16%) followed by Portugal (0.21%) and Italy (0.20%).
The poor performance of the last three member states are of great concern to the European Commission although the governments have promised to catch up in 2007-2008. Another concern is the practice by several member states of writing off the debt of some countries rather than actually increasing development aid for countries like Iraq and Nigeria. The way the Commission sees it, member states should be increasing the amount they actually spend in PDA.
The Commission is expected to urge these member states to draw up a detailed action plan on how they plan to increase PDA from now until the 2010 deadline when member states collectively pledged to increase PDA to 0.56% (0.51% individually) en route to reaching 0.70% in 2015. The Commission will use these roadmaps to closely monitor the situation and publish progress reports each year. (an)