DEVELOPMENT-EUROPE: NGOs Outraged By Planned 1999 EU Budget Cuts

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Niccolo Sarno

BRUSSELS, May 21 1998 (IPS) - Development groups say they are outraged by European Union plans to trim back cooperation funds for the South — and then to redirect the money saved into projects in countries closer to its borders.

Despite the fact that the EU’s 1999 overall budget is planned to rise by more than six percent on 1998 figures, a cut of around 26 percent — roughly 110 million dollars — is being proposed in several areas of EU development cooperation spending next ye ar.

“Last year’s (proposed) reduction was 18 percent, so we’re looking at something much more dramatic this year,” said James Mackie, secretary general of the Brussels-based NGDOs Liaison Committee, a network of 900 European development NGOs (NGDOs).

Much of that money, plus more besides, will go instead to central and eastern Europe and the southern Mediterranean countries.

These countries, nearer to the EU ‘home’, will be the main beneficiaries of changes proposed by the first draft of the 15 nation bloc’s 1999 budget, says the NGDO Liaison Committee.

NGOs say the draft, as tabled by the EU’s executive Commission, exposes the growing imbalance in levels of cooperation between regions.

The 1999 draft budget was released on May 12, beginning a long process of revision and approval by the various EU institutions and member states, needed before its final adoption.

Although several so-called ‘budget lines’ for the South are threatened by the proposed cuts, funds for civil society in general will be worst hit, say the NGOs.

These cuts would affect NGO projects and programmes, decentralised cooperation, rehabilitation and reconstruction, family planning and reproductive health, the environment and human rights.

“We had expected some reductions, but this is worse than we expected,” Mackie told IPS.

The Commission said that there were other budget lines available to NGOs. Maria da Conceicao Van Dunem, spokeswoman for European commissioner for development, Joao de Deus Pinheiro, told IPS that the NGDO Committee “should have a global view”. To her, she said, “this point of view is partial because there are several budget lines available to NGOs”.

The proposed budget speaks for itself. In 1998, the Commission voluntarily proposed an ‘austerity’ budget for the EU’s spending in all its sectors, limiting overall spending increases to just three percent.

This year austerity is put aside. The Commission now says it is willing to more than double the 1998 increase in 1999, and proposes a hike in the overall budget of 6.47 percent.

At the same time, several budgets intended for development projects and support for democracy and human rights in the developing world will be slashed by 22.3 percent. Similarly, budget proposals for development cooperation with the world’s poorest count ries will be cut by 4.4 percent overall.

“One particular serious casualty in the proposal is the rehabilitation budget line, which is basically funds that are made available for reconstructing infrastructure, such as schools or primary health centres, after some sort of crisis,” said Mackie.

“This was quite a major gap in the Commission’s funding instruments,” he added.

Much of the redirected funds are expected to go to countries earmarked for EU membership in the near future. “Do we want to finance the enlargement of the European Union with money from the poor in the Third World?” asked the Liaison Committee in its c ollective statement on the issue.

The development cooperation funds allocated to Asia and Latin America has been held at under 15 percent for several years, while budgets for the Mediterranean and central and eastern Europe have constantly increased since the beginning of the 1990s.

For 1999, if the draft becomes reality, the Mediterranean and central and eastern Europe will take more than half the ‘external actions’ budget funds provided by the EU — the world’s top donor and most important source of development aid.

The Liaison Committee says the root of the problem can be traced back to June 1995 when the bloc’s leaders pledged increasingly large sums to both regions without providing extra resources.

The EU member states said the budget for central and eastern Europe should increase from 1,270 million dollars in 1995 to 1,797 millions in 1999. They also agreed to increase Mediterranean countries’ budget from 610 million dollars to 1,257 million dolla rs over the same period.

The EU’s PHARE assistance programme for ex-Communist central Europe, which aims to help countries with grant finance and has with a view to their future membership of the EU, has seen a 43 percent budget increase this year alone.