Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-17-Speech-3-162"
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"en.20000517.9.3-162"2
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"Mr President, fine words have been spoken about cancelling the enormous debts of a large number of developing countries to mark the millennium, as Mr Van Dam mentioned a moment ago. These speeches were given at the G7 meeting, at the European Summit in Lisbon and at the recent Euro-African Summit in Cairo. The question we are left with today is: what will come of this? We have heard a few examples from the HIPC-I and HIPC-II programmes and I understand that 1 billion is tied up in this second programme. The total debt burden of all developing countries comes to 350 billion. This means that, in comparison, this 1 billion is really peanuts. Many of those countries pay 25% to 40% of their national budget on interest and repayment into banks in Western Europe, the United States and Japan. The harsh reality is that the billions which are paid to repay debts far exceed the development aid. That is a disastrous situation because we often ask ourselves why our development aid does not work. Well, here is one of the most important reasons. If a sum of money comes in and subsequently a sum has to be repaid which is three or four times the original amount, then those countries will not make any headway, of course.
One question which remains is: should you cancel debts unconditionally? I do not share the view of Mr Miranda or other MEPs who think one should. In my opinion, conditions should very much be part of the deal. The countries involved should be the poorest ones, to start with. They should have a democratic government and a pluriform parliament which keeps the government in check. The country must fight corruption actively. The countries concerned should not be at war or participate in wars, and an agreed proportion of the budget must really be spent on social schemes for the poorest citizens, and must be invested in education, health care and social security. I do not agree with Mr Da Costa who said a moment ago that this might be somewhat neo-colonial. It was even agreed in Copenhagen, at the Social Summit for developing countries which was held there a while ago, that a proportion was to be spent on those costs.
Mr President, we should really call for something to be done about this. We should simply spend 10% of the total development budget on cancelling these debts. If we do nothing, the countries will remain trapped in a downward spiral."@en1
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