Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-10-22-Speech-1-117-000"
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"en.20121022.21.1-117-000"2
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".
Mr President, why does the European Union’s policy on development need to change?
European Union policy must be consistent, coherent. Coherence means that departments other than that concerned with development must be persuaded to abandon any action which might undermine what has been achieved in development cooperation. Our 27 Member States must be aware of this and must act accordingly so that, operating as 28, along with the Commission, the External Action Service, they fulfil the requirement of coordinated action stipulated in the Lisbon Treaty. Your rapporteur believes that the dialogue amongst the 28 is far from good enough, in terms of ministers’ attendance at Council meetings and the extremely limited time allocated to this dialogue.
So I think that, before we take decisions, there must be a meeting of minds on the main strategic issues which determine the European Union’s development policy. An independent think tank at European level, providing real added value, real added value over and above that provided by existing national bodies, might be better placed to guide us in our response to the major challenges of development. I will spare you the detail, which you can find in my written report.
As we are aware, this matter of development receives insufficient attention in public debate. To remedy that state of affairs, and this is the purpose of the oral question I added to my request for this report, we ask Parliament to approve our motion to have 2015 declared the European Year for Development. This request is supported by Thijs Berman, Philippe Boulland and Eva Joly.
Why do we need responsible development? Because the Millennium Development Goals will never be attained if the mid-income countries, where 7 out of 10 people are poor, do not shoulder their responsibilities. We need it because the imperative of policy coherence requires us too, in the European Union, to rethink a number of our methods. If we want to remain relevant here in 2015, it seems to me that 2015 is none too soon a date.
It cannot stay the same because the world has changed. These days, 7 out of 10 poor people in the world are living not in the least developed countries or the developing countries but in the emerging countries. Admittedly, globalisation is creating considerable wealth, but not all of it filters through to the least well off.
In addition to that, we have the explosive rate of population growth. Today, the planet has seven billion mouths to feed. In 20 years’ time, the figure will be nine billion. A country’s economic growth is only real when the economy is growing faster than the birth rate.
In the course of the 21st century, the European Union’s influence in the world will steadily fall away in what some call a ‘strategic decline’, in contrast to that of the emerging countries whose booming economies have already made them confident political players.
Even so, the European Union is far and away the world’s leading provider of public-sector development aid. It aspires not only to remain the leading player in this field, but also to be the best one.
To ensure that this remains the case in the future too, the Committee on Development envisages the following way forward. The European Union’s development policy pursues the noblest of all objectives, namely to promote human dignity by eradicating poverty, nothing more, nothing less. Public-sector aid to development must be tailored to the needs of our partners in the South, respecting the choices they make. Development policy must help the poor, with no hidden agenda, and must be consistent with the European Consensus on Development as reflected in the statement agreed by the Council, Commission and Parliament.
We would like to see Lady Ashton signing the relevant document too, so that there is not the slightest doubt as to the intentions of all the European institutions concerning development. We call on all those involved – private-sector players, wealthy nations, poor nations, multilateral organisations – to shoulder their development responsibilities.
For this reason, we endorse the wish of the European Commission to provide its aid on a differentiated basis and to strike the emerging countries, with their booming economies, off the list of beneficiaries. The alleviation of poverty in these countries must no longer be a matter for international solidarity but must now be a domestic policy concern. Our Committee would like this to come about through dialogue with these countries and a gradual withdrawal of the European Union from giving them aid.
Commissioner Piebalgs favours inclusive growth in the developing countries. We agree with that approach. With the proviso that the promotion of growth in the developing countries, as in Europe too, must bring about a real improvement in the lot of the poorest. Account must be taken of this in the programming of aid. So we believe that at least 20 % of EU aid must go towards basic social services as defined by the United Nations in its Millennium Development Goals."@en1
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