DEVELOPMENT-EUROPE: Biggest Aid Packet at Risk

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Feb 4 2003 (IPS) - The world’s biggest source of development assistance could be at risk from a new European convention being given final touches.

The new Convention could subordinate development assistance to foreign policy goals, leading NGOs (non-governmental organisations) say. The convention is reviewing the EU (European Union) institutions and policy framework, including Europe’s ‘external actions’ such as development cooperation.

EU aid, at national and European Community level, constitutes the world’s largest development aid package. The EU is also the biggest trading partner for most developing countries.

The convention is being drawn up after the largest-ever consultation process undertaken by the EU. But equally it is being challenged by the biggest ever collection of NGOs on any European issue.

More than 2,000 European NGOs have come together to challenge its proposals under the campaign ACT4EUROPE. In the UK, BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) has mobilised its network of more than 270 British NGOs working in international development. Some three million British citizens support BOND agencies as volunteers, members or donors.

"As Europe struggles over the possibility of war, its commitment to development and humanitarian assistance is being compromised by the Convention," says Helen O’Connel, head of policy at One World Action, a leading NGO in the BOND network. "Development is getting lost in the big Future of Europe debate."

The convention is a lengthy consultative process due to be completed in the spring. The recommendations will be presented at an EU heads of state summit in Greece in June.

A 34-page Convention report outlining a blueprint for future EU ‘External Actions’ makes only minimal reference to development cooperation and poverty eradication. The paper refers to "strategic interests" rather than values, and development is seen as one of the "instruments and tools" for the EU to "maximise its influence", BOND says in a comment on the convention.

The move is being opposed also by senior officials within the EU. "Twenty years of development cooperation thinking appears to be lost in the Convention, thinking which has made no intellectual impression on those currently rearranging institutions," Koos Richelle, director-general for development with the EC told a conference called by ACT4EUROPE in Brussels last week.

Van Hecken, chef de cabinet of the Belgian Ministry for Development says the convention report on external actions "justifies our worst fears." Britain’s junior minister for development Sally Keeble told the conference: "Development cooperation should remain a specific policy area, it must not become a political tool for foreign policy."

While the Convention is being billed the largest ever consultative process launched in the EU, many decisions are being taken behind closed doors, BOND spokesman Howard Mollett told IPS. "The Convention has barely acknowledged Europe’s global responsibilities," he said. "The procedures for decision-making need to be made accountable and transparent."

Already, the newly proposed EU Asia-Latin America Financial Regulation (ALA) calls for "increased flexibility" in aid allocation so that funds can be used for EU foreign policy objectives. The Convention is also in line with the views of Javier Solana, the EU Council’s high representative on foreign affairs who has said that aid processed through the EC (European Commission), the executive arm of the EU, should be guided by the Common Foreign and Security Policy rather than purely development objectives.

Development advocates say the new proposals threaten to undermine the international development policy adopted by the Council of Ministers in 2000 with poverty eradication at its heart. The policy of development cooperation was built then into the objectives of the historic Maastricht Treaty of the EU signed in 1992.

NGOs suggest that the Convention risks dismantling these commitments. The EC had played a progressive role in coordinating EU member state efforts to increase their aid following the UN Financing for Development conference. Proposals under the Convention would end the EU’s contribution to stepping up development assistance.

"EC aid allocations to low income developing countries have dropped to just 38 per cent of total aid in 2001 as funding middle-income countries in Europe’s near-abroad has become the foreign policy priority," BOND says in its report. Several member states have pushed for trade and development cooperation to be tied to the willingness of developing countries to cooperate on immigrant repatriation schemes.

"Development assistance cannot be treated as a reward," the BOND statement says. "It is an EU commitment. The EU’s response to humanitarian crises should be determined by the needs of third countries and the peoples affected, not by the EU’s strategic interest."