Brussels, 04/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - Following 2005 and 2006, two decisive years when new life was breathed into the EU's development policy, the time has come to translate political commitments to substantially increase the quantity and quality of European aid into actions, boosting trade aid to developing countries, particularly the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) states. The European Commission feels that 2007 will be a test year for demonstrating that these pledges have been respected. Three communications were adopted by the College of Commissioners on Wednesday - a political communication made up of two separate communications, one on public development aid and the other on aid to trade, which examines the situation and translates this desire of the Commission into encouraging member states to improve on their current performances - performances about which they have nothing really to blush about. Overall, the EU is on the right track to keep to what was intended but more effort is needed to keep things up: provide aid that can be planned better on a sustained basis and improve aid coordination and efficiency.
This is the key message in the communication “From Monterrey to the European Development Consensus: Respecting our Commitments”. This includes commitments made by the EU in Monterrey in March 2002 (UN conference on development aid) to gradually bring the volume of public development aid up to 0.7% in 2015 (€164 per European citizen a year); commitments made in December 2005 when the EU was given a development policy framework for the first time (2005-2010) based on a common vision, objectives and increased means, as well as guarantees for greater coordination and efficiency. Although 80% of the promise made at the G8 Gleneagles summit (July 2005) for increased public development aid had been met by the Europeans, the communication underlines that Europe's influence has to be on the same level as the resources provided, and efforts have to intensify towards joint programming of bilateral and Community aid.
The communication, “The EU is meeting its commitments - keeping our promises development funding” uses supporting figures demonstrating that in terms of aid volume, the EU is on the right track for respecting its objectives, contrary to other major donors. Figures published on 3 April by the Committee for Aid Development (CAD) at the OECD, confirm that in 2006, the EU15 had collectively superseded its intermediate target, which it had based on the fact that the average level of its PDA reached 0.42% of GDP (instead of 0.39%) - that is €48bn and equivalent to €100 per European citizen a year (as opposed to €53 for every US citizen and €60 for every Japanese citizen). The priority accorded to Africa is becoming concrete given that at least half of European aid is already going to this continent, which is expected to benefit from €10bn in supplementary aid as from 2010.
The Commission says that vigilance is called for because although Sweden, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have dedicated more than 0.80% of their GDP to PDA, and new member states have doubled their aid since joining the EU, Greece, Portugal and Italy are now off target. Certain member states (like Germany, France and the United Kingdom) have also substituted debt cancellation operations with a sustainable budgetary effort that will allow for an annual increase in PDA, which worries the Commission (EUROPE 9399). 1600 European development NGOs in the CONCORD federation have also criticised European governments for inflating their figures and emphasise that, “close to one third of EU development assistance in 2006 did not deliver any fresh resources”.
Development Commissioner Louis Michel stated, “But we now have a twofold challenge to take up. First, we must honour our promises by giving our partners greater and more predictable aid; second, our effort must be spread fairly and each member state must honour its own commitments, which is not the case for some of them at the moment." The Commission is therefore proposing to set up a roadmap for these countries to catch up in 2007-08 and help them move closer to their individual targets by 2010 (0.51% of GDP) - a roadmap that it will closely monitor to measure progress each year.
The communication, “Towards an EU Strategy for Aid to Trade - European Commission Contribution” looks at the commitment made by the EU in October 2006 to collectively deliver €2bn in aid to trade a year for all development countries from 2010 (€1bn provided by member states which provide “a significant part” of it to ACP countries, and €1bn by the Commission). This is a key element of the WTO's Doha development agenda, and of the ongoing economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and six ACP regional groups, as there is no point in liberalising if support is not given to strengthening trade rules and policies and to developing the production capacities and infrastructures of these developing countries.
The communication states that with 840 million euros a year, the Commission is nearing its objective. The same cannot be said of the Member States; with their score of around 300 million euros a year, they have fallen far short. The level of aid must therefore be increased to enable developing countries to benefit from trade liberalisation. “The EU is already the biggest importer from the developing world and the world's most open market for developing countries. Building on the EU's record for openness to developing country exports means helping these countries build the capacity to trade more. This is an important new focus for EU aid and development policy”, explains Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner.
The Commission, which wants to launch the basis of a common commercial aid strategy in accordance with the agenda for the harmonisation and effectiveness of European aid, proposes setting the Member States an interim aim of 600 million euros per year in 2008. An implementation plan for the Member States' financial commitment up to 2010, a political commitment on their part to engagement to go further to strengthen areas outside traditional commercial aid (such as developing production capacities and funding the adjustment cost of the loss of customs duties, for example), and precisions on “the main part” of the resources earmarked for the ACP states will complete the scheme.
It will be down to the General Affairs/Development Council on 14 and 15 May in Brussels to comment on this package of measures proposed by the Commission. (an)