Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-05-Speech-3-380"
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".
(
) Mr President, it is always slightly embarrassing to make do with saying that what one has just heard corresponds to one’s own convictions, but it is obvious that, like you, I agree with the majority of the points that have just been made. Even so, and in order to be entirely objective, I will make a number of comments.
One final point: you know that, within a broad European consensus, I advocate a common programme in which the contributions of European donors, Member States and the Commission are merged together. If we could truly succeed with this common programming initiative, in other words collectively agree on common objectives and decide on how to share out the work between us, then I think we would be much more effective, particularly in fighting the terrible disease of AIDS. This approach would be more coherent and perhaps then we would have a real European strategy at our disposal, something that is not the case today, as we must admit. Today, we are donors, we are investing money in the Global Fund, we finance this Fund, but we do not have our own strategy for fighting AIDS except, as I said earlier, for our plan to attack it on several fronts: gender inequality, the education of girls, care, access to health care, all those problems that the state is called upon to solve. Apart from that, we do not have a truly specific strategy for fighting AIDS. We have to admit that what we are doing is financing external operations. Therefore, if we had a common programme, we could then perhaps implement a more refined strategy that would engage in a more direct way with the specific aspects - and even local aspects - of this problem.
It has been pointed out that we could find the means to resolve this crucial problem if only we wanted to. This, for me, is a major concern. Mrs Scheele put it well: it is a question of political will. For my part, I can only fight this fight by using arguments and speeches. I cannot – obviously - force Member States and international donors to be more generous. I was very shocked and surprised by the low level of commitment in London. If I recall correctly, the objective was set at USD 7 billion, and we barely reached the figure of USD 3.7 billion, which is indeed well below the initial objective. It will therefore be necessary to continue our efforts.
My second observation is that I agree, of course, with Mr Bowis who argues in favour of strengthening research in this area. It is clear that research will ultimately enable us to gain a great deal of time in our efforts to eradicate this terrible evil once and for all.
As for the fixing of a percentage, Mrs van Lancker, even if I agree in general what you say, I would like to emphasise that we do not determine such a percentage ourselves: it is determined by the partner countries. The principle of appropriation exists and we often have to plead with our partners in order for them to agree to dedicate part of the development aid that we donate to a sector like the one under discussion this evening. This is something I consider important to remember. In other words, I am personally right behind you when you say 6%, but this does not depend entirely on us.
As regards the developmental aid dedicated to the Millennium Development Goals, I very sincerely have the impression that in the framework of the new programme – which we are working on and for which we will need your contributions, creativity and ideas – more than 50% will be devoted to the Millennium Goals. In fact, my conviction is, and this has become an obsession with me – by the way it is, curiously enough, very difficult to find people who share it – that, in many developing countries, problems are linked to the inadequacy of the state, to the deficit in the state’s capacity to deliver social or democratic services, like access to education for girls, access to health care, access to justice, access to administration. All this is often very incomplete, and sometimes it does not even exist at all. Therefore, when we give the states in question the means to reinforce their service capacities in a general sense, then it is quite understandable that this money will also help to meet the Millennium Goals.
As for your remark about maintaining our contribution to the Global Fund, we do indeed intend to maintain this contribution. I should also say that a number of Member States of the European Union set a good example in London and have made real efforts concerning the sums. It is our non-European partners who have been rather timid on this subject.
I agree with you that we must provide more significant support to benefit those countries which especially make particular efforts, even if AIDS does not, unfortunately, recognise borders. We must therefore make aid payments dependent on the performance of these countries, and that is what we are doing. Moreover, as you know, the 10th European Development Fund provides a special instalment which is, precisely, intended to supply additional means in a significant quantity relative to the initially planned sum, depending on governance, on performance and also depending on, for example, investment dedicated by partner countries to the fight against AIDS.
Now, Mrs Hall, as regards local NGOs who feel that they have not been treated properly by the Commission, if you have specific NGOs with specific projects in mind, then I would like to hear about them. Be that as it may, I recognise that the Commission’s policy has been to avoid spreading credits too thinly between all sorts of projects which, taken individually and on a micro-local level, are doubtless important. In any case, it seemed to us that it was even more important for the international community to have a truly coherent communal strategy, based on a methodology that would be consistent across the board in order to deal with the problem as a whole. The Commission’s policy has been to try to make payments into the Global Fund in order that there might be a 'thinking head' capable of generating a global strategy. In any case, if an individual project is good, why not fund it, indeed. However, I remain convinced that if we dispersed ourselves between all sorts of projects then we would not be so efficient.
That is the choice that the Commission has made, although it does not prevent me from being open to discussion – I am not narrow-minded. However, if certain people think that we should multiply little projects, even if they are good ones, then I remain sceptical as to the long term effectiveness of this strategy. When it comes to dealing with large scale problems like the one we are talking about this evening, I personally am in favour of adopting a much more systematic procedure. Now, if you spread out your resources among a multitude of small projects, then you lose sight of the systematic global approach and you become less effective. That would be my cause for concern. However, if you know the NGOs who have submitted these applications, please do give them and show them to me, because I do not want to give the impression of being arbitrary. Besides, I am not the one who decides – the administration submits its conclusions to me, and it is, unfortunately, not possible for me to study each application individually. Thus, if certain people believe that their applications have been treated unfairly, then I am willing to look into this question."@en1
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