Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-05-27-Speech-1-152-000"
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"en.20150527.12.1-152-000"2
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"Mr President, only nine days ago my colleague, Nathan Gill, stood up in plenary in Strasbourg and said that the developing world needs trade not aid, and this week we have been given a case study that proves precisely that point.
Eritrea, as a state, has a terrible record on freedom of the press and human rights abuses. In fact in 2011 the country refused to grant entry to an independent UN reporter out of fear of what they might find, and only this week the European Union has called on Eritrea’s President to free reporters, bloggers and prisoners alike.
But the benign reality is that the EU suffers from its own hypocrisy and delusion on what development aid might achieve. The EU on one hand condemns dictators, and then gives countries aid. It then wants to tackle migration into Europe, but implements harmful policies. It throws money around without any accountability. And all too often, sanctions are applied that harm the actual innocent and do not deal with the guilty.
Only this week, the African Economic Output Report stated that Eritrea’s GDP has gone up to 2.1%, and that is almost double where it was in 2013. This country is rich and could easily mine gold, iron, copper and nickel – and those are resources that most countries would dream of having available to them. What Eritrea now needs is to be coerced to diversify its economy away from a completely mining-based economy. The people need jobs, they need job security, and most of all, they need an opportunity to escape poverty.
Foreign aid just does not tackle that. We have got to be very careful where we apply this foreign aid and what we ask for it from this country. I do not believe that we are actually taking the right steps towards that goal."@en1
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