Brussels, 15/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg on 15 October, the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the Twenty-Seven formally confirmed that the Member States of the EU will take their share in the effort to keep the promise made to the developing countries to increase European aid to trade in their favour. They also stated that around half of the resources generated by this financial effort would go to the ACP States (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA), compatible with WTO rules, with the EU.
In so doing, the Council adopted without debate the common strategy on aid to trade of the EU targeting the developing countries, particularly the least developed countries, encouraging them to take advantage of the opening-up of the markets, by using trade as a driving force behind development, and becoming better integrated in the multilateral trade system (EUROPE 9401). The EU's joint strategy directly springs from an initiative taken at the WTO (Hong Kong ministerial conference in December 2005) as part of the Doha Development Round.
In October 2006, the EU had undertaken to increase financial aid to trade in favour of developing countries up to €2 billion annually by 2010 (€1 billion from the Commission, and another billion being provided by member states) - a “significant share” of this aid having been pledged by member nations to ACP countries.
In the strategy adopted on 15 October, the Council confirms that 50% of the €2 billion potentially available each year from 2010 will come from the EU budget managed by the Commission, and that the remaining 50% will come from member states' budgets. Better still: the Council specifies that the share reserved for ACP States out of the total of these financial resources should be by way of 50% - an amount that could represent an annual increase in aid by way of €300-400 million. These funds will be available to meet the needs of ACP countries in respect of the priorities that they themselves will have established at national and regional level, the Council states.
The Council, with figures and dates to hand, explains how the EU's commitment will be carried out and responds to the request made by the European Commission that wanted to know exactly what should be understood by “significant share” of the aid reserved to ACP countries.
The response given by the Council will constitute the EU's input to the upcoming WTO global review on aid for trade in Geneva on 20 and 21 November 2007, to measure progress accomplished. These precisions are also of a kind that reassure the ACP States (African, Caribbean and Pacific) at a crucial stage in the laborious talks that do not look as though they will be completed with the six negotiating regions (EUROPE 9521) on 31 December 2007 despite the buffer date of 1 January 2008 fixed by the WTO for entry into force of the EPAs (Economic Partnership Agreements). Throughout the talks, the ACP countries continued to call on the EU for additional resources in order to prepare for the EPA, and to recognise the amounts on which they may really count for financing implementation of free trade agreements (FTA), which have considerable consequences for the vulnerable economies of developing countries. (A.N.)