Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-376"
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"en.20060214.29.2-376"2
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".
Mr President, the Commission was asked last week by the European Parliament to make a statement on innovative sources of financing for development cooperation. Commissioner Michel cannot be here tonight as he is travelling to eastern Africa to previous engagements which could not be rescheduled. He is extremely sorry not to be able to share with you the Commission’s views on this topic and has asked me to step in for him.
Aid needs to be substantially increased if the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved. The European Union has not shied away from its responsibilities towards its partner countries. Quite the contrary: the European Council of June 2005 forcefully restated its support for the Millennium Development Goals with ambitious commitments on both the quality and the quantity of aid.
In particular, the European Council has committed itself to increasing official development assistance with the aim of achieving a target of 0.7% of gross national income in 2015. To that end, a collective target of 0.56% of GNI has been fixed for 2010.
However, more aid will not be enough. We need to ensure that current and promised increases in financing are provided in ways which actually help countries meet their commitments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
In the recently approved joint statement by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission on the European consensus for development, the European Union commits itself to the more predictable and less volatile aid mechanisms. The Commission believes that innovative mechanisms for financing development have a useful role to play. For this reason during 2005, at the request of the Council, the Commission produced a series of staff working papers providing technical analysis of innovative sources of financing for development.
In addition, in April 2005, the Commission adopted a communication to the Council and the European Parliament, ‘Accelerating progress towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals – Financing for Development and Aid Effectiveness’. Amongst other things, this communication discussed innovative sources of financing and new delivery aid mechanisms and invited the Council to ‘agree to accelerate work on the most promising options for innovative additional sources of finance’. The Commission noted that any innovative sources of financing must be assessed in light of a number of criteria. For example: how much would each proposal raise? To what extent would the funds be additional to existing commitments? How stable and predictable would they be? What are the competitiveness and sectoral impacts? What would the launch and administration costs be? Which proposals can go forward fastest? Is universal support required or can proposals be implemented at regional – that is EU – level?
The Commission notes France’s readiness to start implementation of one of the proposals emerging from that debate, namely, the imposition of a solidarity contribution on all air tickets sold in France as of July 2006. This initiative may have a positive effect on other countries’ readiness to carry forward initiatives in the area of financing for development.
The Commission would also like to inform the European Parliament that, to support the debate and preserve the momentum on these issues, a technical workshop between the Commission and Member State representatives was held on 9 February 2006. The workshop touched upon the existing initiatives, as well as possible alternatives with respect to innovative financing. The Commission, however, also looked at ways in which existing aid arrangements could be modified and complemented so as to deliver resources in more predictable ways.
Finally, the Commission would like to note that, during the workshop, the French representatives gave an update on the high-level conference to be held in Paris on 28 February and 1 March. Representatives of the Commission will be present at that event."@en1
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