By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Feb 7 2002 (IPS)

European Union, EU, member states who fail to meet United Nations aid targets will be named and shamed in a report to be released next week by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU.

The United Nations ‘Millennium’ goal is for aid donors to set aside 0.7 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for development co- operation, but only a handful of the 15 EU states achieve this target.

In a report, due to be adopted on February 13 and presented to the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers on February 18, the European Commission will urge the 15 EU nations to make a concerted effort to increase Official Development Aid (ODA) and adopt timetables for achieving the Millennium target.

This should be done in time for the UN conference on financing for development to be held from March 18-22 in Monterrey, Mexico, where the EU hopes to play a leading role.

The top Commission official responsible for the development, Poul Neilson, says he has set out his hopes for the UN conference to Members of the Strasbourg-based European Parliament (MEPs). “We are convinced that in the current international context, we cannot approach the Financing for Development (FfD) Conference on a ‘business as usual’ basis: this time we need concrete action,” Nielson told a Euro MPs meeting in plenary session on February 6.

Speaking for the Presidency of the European Union, Ramón de Miguel told MEPs that the Monterray conference would be one of the most important events dealing with developments during Spain’s six month leadership of the EU. “The EU is now in a position to take on a leadership role at Monterray which corresponds with its status as largest Official Development Aid donor in the world,” said Miguel, the Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs.

Following very tense and drawn-out discussions on the issue of financing for development on November 8 last year, EU Development Ministers asked the Commission to produce a report and co-ordinate EU preparations for the Monterray conference. It was asked to consider the volume of official development aid, global public goods and innovative sources of financing.

But the Commission is hardly a neutral mediator, and Nielson has often spoken on the need to increase the ODA. “We have to agree on concrete steps to double ODA flows within the next five years, in order to be able to achieve the Millennium development goals,” Nielson told the European Parliament on February 6. The Commission has no power to influence national budgets, and risks offending member states that jealously guard their national sovereignty.

The EU executive’s report will draw on the results of a dialogue with the 15 EU Member States during the month of January this year. It will point out that only four out of the 15 Member States give 0.7 percent or more of their GDP for development aid – Denmark, the Netherlands , Sweden and Luxembourg. Most of the 11 other states are below target at about 0.33 percent to 0.35 percent of their budget. The Commission will encourage those EU governments that have agreed on a strategy or a calendar to reach the millennium target, such as Ireland, the United Kingdom and Finland.

The Commission is particularly concerned about Italy – the EU country that gives the smallest percentage of its budget for development – only 0.13 percent. What is more, Italy did not give any indication of plans to increase it’s ODA during bi-lateral discussions with the Commission last month. But recently, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Burlusconi, announced that his government intends to increase its aid contributions to one percent of Italy’s GDP. The Commission official responsible for the financing for development dossier said that he was “delighted” to hear this news, but that even if it were true, it would be too late to include in the report’s analysis.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament will adopt a resolution tomorrow (Thursday), criticising the draft common text due to be agreed by world leaders in Monterray.

The French Green MEP, Didier Claude Rod, says he would have liked the Parliament’s resolution to go even further. “This conference, which is supposed to tackle key issues, looks likely to make declarations which will never be implemented. It is all very well to say that we want to reduce poverty by half by 2015, but we have to put the money on the table,” said Rod.

The French politician argues that the EU has a duty to take the lead on the issue. “The EU Member States cannot keep on using the excuse that the United States does not agree with them. The EU must take the lead on this – we are not talking about extra aid here, but a legitimate and necessary redistribution on a global level .”

Francis Lemoine, a policy analyst from the European Network on Debt and Development, Eurodad, says that European activists have been pushing hard for the EU to take positive steps toward reaching the 0.7 percent of the GNP target. But Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were very disappointed that “the EU delegation was not prepared to make much effort to convince the US to take a more positive attitude toward increased ODA flows,” he said, referring to recent negotiations in New York. Another Eurodad campaigner, Jonathan Wolsey, blames the unambitious draft Monterray text on “a lack of political unity in the EU,” and the Group of 77 poor nations.

Simon Stocker, director of the European NGO network Eurostep, said that now the draft text is agreed, activists will concentrate on pushing the European Union and its Member States to make concrete commitments. “Governments want to show what they are doing to make Monterray successful, and this gives NGOs new opportunities to influence the process,” he said.

Stocker describes a Danish plan to cut development aid as “disastrous”. He fears the draft budget would hit Danish NGOs hard if adopted, because they rely heavily on government funds. Denmark is currently one of the most generous donors in the world, at 1.06 percent of GDP.

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