Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-015"
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"en.20050511.3.3-015"2
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".
Mr President, in the European Union, we are very good at sanctimonious rhetoric about the need for poverty reduction in poor countries. But whatever the appearances, this is not what today’s discussion is about. As Mr Almunia has made clear, it is about influence.
I will not comment on Mr Wolfowitz’s suitability to lead the World Bank, but the European Union’s initial hostility to him has softened. The EU needs support for Pascal Leumi to head up the World Trade Organization and for its candidate – perhaps Baroness Amos? – to lead the United Nations Development Programme. Hence the comment of Action Aid that EU support for Mr Wolfowitz is a stitch-up, and similar remarks from other NGOs.
Whilst I will not diminish the value to poor nations of assistance from the World Bank and the European Union, fair trading conditions would be of far greater value to them than any amount of aid or debt relief. Trade, rather than hand-outs, allows poor nations to help themselves, as the Indonesians were pleading after the tsunami.
Unfortunately, the EU seems to excel in poverty creation in pursuit of its own agenda: for example, paying cash to Mauritania, Angola and Mozambique for the right to fish out their coastal waters and impoverish their fishermen; or economic partnership agreements under which the European Union tries to buy poor nations’ acquiescence to its protectionist policies.
No doubt the rhetoric will continue. The reality is that self-interest rather than philanthropy drives the EU’s actions, and this self-interest is best served by the EU having its own people in the top jobs."@en1
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