Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-06-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20060406.5.4-026"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, I am pleased that we are, in this House today, having a serious debate on a matter that is not always easy to discuss in the context of a debate on development cooperation. Quantitatively speaking, Europe is the world’s greatest donor, but there has been a growing global awareness over recent years of the truth that the way aid is targeted is at least as important as the quantity of it.
Last year’s Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness forms an important benchmark for action on this front and the Commission has recently responded to it by means of a package of measures on the effectiveness of aid which we will shortly be discussing in the Committee on Development Cooperation.
My own-initiative report, on which we are to vote today, makes a few serious recommendations as to how to make aid more effective. The effectiveness of aid is dependent to a large degree on good governance, free from corruption, for not only is it the case that aid money is raked off, but corruption is also a hindrance to development and has a disproportionate effect on the poorest members of society. It makes access to essential services, such as basic education and health care, more difficult and sometimes impossible.
Corruption is an enormous problem on a worldwide scale. Estimates by the World Bank suggest that in any one year, over USD 1 billion – that is, 1 000 billion in our terms – is paid in bribes. In Africa, the world’s poorest continent, the amount estimated as being lost – USD 148 billion – is more or less equivalent to 25% of the continent’s GDP, and corruption is present at every level of society and nearly everyone is affected by it: politicians, civil servants, the media, multinational enterprises and the international donor community. Responsibility for good governance and effective aid is shared by the donor community and the developing countries themselves; ‘it takes two to tango’. My proposals therefore deal with what we – the European Union, the Commission and the Member States – can do in practical terms, preferably together with the international community as a whole.
My principal proposal is for the drawing up of a blacklist of corrupt regimes, which should receive no further loans from banks or other financial institutions. Those who do lend money to governments on such a list would be exposing themselves to the risk of debt and would be unable to ask the international community to bail them out. This would prevent the people from becoming the ultimate victims of the likes of Marcos, Kabila, Abacha or any of their successors.
I then propose that a small percentage – 0.5% – of the amount paid out directly to a country’s government be required to be paid as budget support to civil society watchdogs. Such groups, belonging to organised civil society, are engaged in the public monitoring of the government’s income and expenditure in terms of the development goals. There also needs to be support – paid out of the same amount – for national parliaments, enabling them to better discharge their monitoring function together with the watchdogs.
Another proposal is that businesses found to have been involved in corruption in respect of projects in developing countries should thereafter be excluded from European tenders. Here too, I propose the compilation of a blacklist of such businesses. Those who can show that there has been improvement, through, for example, changes in management, would get a second chance and could be removed from the list.
Finally, all Member States of the EU must delay no longer in ratifying the UN’s anti-corruption treaty, which dates back to 2003. At present, only two of them have done so: France and Hungary. That state of affairs must change. This treaty is the first international agreement to use international law as a means of combating corruption, by, for example, preventing and penalising money-laundering, promptly freezing financial assets held in banks overseas, and seizing those assets where corruption is proven.
Such are some of the proposals I have put forward in my report. They represent, of course, only a couple of steps that Europe can take in addressing the enormous problem that corruption presents to society, but let us – the Commission, Parliament and the Member States – make them a priority, so that we no longer merely point the finger at the developing countries, but also own up to our own wrongdoing. I will be interested to hear how the Commission responds to these practical proposals, for, remember: ‘it takes two to tango’."@en1
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