Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-221"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031118.7.2-221"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – The Commission considers that addressing developing countries' debt problems is an important means of achieving the Community's development cooperation policy objectives. The Community is actively participating in the current Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative with more than EUR 1.6 billion pledged up to now: EUR 680 million on its own claims as a creditor and EUR 934 million as a donor to the HIPC Trust Fund.
The Commission would also like to recall that this participation represents much more than the minimum required by the HIPC initiative. Indeed the Community, as a donor, is a major contributor to the HIPC Trust Fund, accounting for almost 25% of the total resources.
Over and above its expected participation as a creditor, the Commission has also earmarked EUR 60 million for the settlement of all the special loans that would remain due from least-developed ACP countries, after they have benefited from the full application of the HIPC terms.
It is also worth noting that most of the EU Member States have announced their intention to cancel 100% of the bilateral debt, beyond the HIPC terms. This means that any further debt cancellation in HIPC countries will relate largely to multilateral institutions, non-Paris Club official creditors and the private sector.
At this point in time, it is also clear that the HIPC initiative has to be considered as a first important step towards long-term debt sustainability and that it will not be sufficient to ensure the beneficiary countries meet the Millennium Development Goals, especially in countries badly affected by HIV/AIDS. Moreover, the adverse economic effects of HIV/AIDS are now much more clearly recognised than they were when the HIPC initiative was launched, and the Commission agrees that it must consider HIV/AIDS when also discussing long-term debt sustainability.
In the framework of the EU-Africa dialogue, the issue of Africa’s External debt has been part of the agenda since the Cairo meeting. The Commission has followed up actively the discussions between the Chefs de file (France and Germany) and the African Union representatives. At the latest ministerial troika meeting of the EU-Africa Dialogue, held in Rome on 10 November, which I attended together with the Irish Foreign Minister, it was agreed that discussions and the corresponding report of the issue of Africa's External Debt should be prepared as a matter of priority and that the experts meeting within the enlarged Troika should be held in the first quarter of next year.
Finally, the Commission has recently launched, as an element of the EU-Africa dialogue, a study on debt relief beyond the HIPC initiative, with the main objective of providing a solid base to assess the situation after the full application of the HIPC initiative. This study should provide key elements for shaping, in coordination with Member States, the Union’s future debt policy. The Commission expects to be able to share with Parliament the results of this study by early next year.
I would add that the complexity of doing something with multilateral debt is much larger and makes anything there much more difficult politically in terms of burden sharing internationally, compared to the handling of bilateral debt. Most donor countries that take their responsibility as a donor partner seriously have in fact more or less cancelled all the outstanding bilateral debt. For the Commission it is important to note that our share of all this as a creditor is very limited, basically because we are a grant donor and do not lend money to our partners."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples