Eurostep weekly

Barroso berates EU states for broken aid promises
José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, has called on EU leaders to honour their 2005 pledge on boosting aid to Africa.
Two years ago, the EU undertook to increase development aid in general and provide $25 billion more in aid to Africa by 2010. In a letter to EU leaders ahead of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany (6-8 June), Barroso complained that “not every country has respected their individual commitments” and “some have done so by writing off outstanding debts to developing countries”.
Germany, the current holder of both the EU and G8 presidencies, is among several EU countries that have been criticised by anti-poverty activists for using debt cancellation data, principally relating to Iraq and Nigeria, to ‘inflate’ the amount of development aid it has given in recent years.
A draft of a final declaration to be issued at Heiligendamm is to underscore the G8’s “firm commitment” to make good on commitments to Africa made by rich countries in 2005. But the declaration will generally avoid making concrete recommendations, according to The Financial Times.
Nonetheless, the summit may agree a new injection of cash to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is reported to have requested up to $10 billion from the G8 between now and 2010.
One of Eurostep’s German members Deutsche Welthungerhilfe has called on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to examine using innovative sources of funding such as a levy on air travel or tax on foreign exchange transactions to increase support for anti-poverty initiatives.

Sources:
www.euobserver.com
www.ft.com www.europe.eu
www.welthungerhilfe.de

Commission using aid as weapon in trade talks, says new study
The European Commission has been denounced for threatening to make aid to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc conditional on their governments signing free trade deals with the EU.
A new report published by several organisations accuses Louis Michel, the European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, of telling ACP government ministers at a meeting in March that the amount of aid they will receive to help them trade with the Union will depend on the “ambition” they display in free trade talks. The Commission is insisting that 76 ACP countries sign deals known as Economic Partnership Agreements by the end of this year.
The report also publishes details of internal Commission documents stating that some aid to the ACP countries will only be released in return for “clear commitments” to agree rules on opening their markets to foreign investors. This is despite how the EU had previously capitulated to developing country demands that investment be taken off the agenda of the Doha round of world trade talks.
The report has been prepared by anti-poverty and fair trade lobby groups including Tearfund, Traidcraft, ActionAid and Christian Aid. It also claims that the ACP is being told that its exports to the EU will be restricted unless the EPAs are signed by 31 December.
In November last year, West African governments asked Brussels to extend the deadline for the talks beyond the end of 2007. In response, they were told that failure to respect the deadline would see higher tariffs imposed on more than $1.3 billion – or nearly 10% - of their exports to the EU.

Sources:
www.epa2007.org
www.christina-aid.org
www.ipsnews.net

EU aid still ‘tied’ – OECD
Several EU countries continue to use development aid to further the interests of their own countries’ firms, a new study has found.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which published the study, has found that only 30% of Spain’s aid to poor countries has been ‘untied’ from contracts for Spanish companies. Italy and Austria have also been reluctant to divorce aid from their narrowly-defined national interest, the OECD found. Just 41% of Italian and 51% of Austrian aid has been untied.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ireland, Britain and Sweden have completely untied their aid programmes, the study notes.
The study evaluates progress made since international donors signed up to a declaration on improving the effectiveness of aid at a March 2005 conference in Paris.
Among the recommendations issued by the OECD are that recipient countries should take the lead in defining priorities for spending aid and that donors should reduce the transaction costs and better manage the division of labour between them.

Sources:
www.oecd.fr
www.eepa.be

Increased optimism on possible treaty deal
Commission President José Manuel Barroso says he is optimistic that EU leaders with reach political agreement on changes to the treaties in June. An intergovernmental conference to sort out the technical details could start in July with the prospect of the agreed changes to the treaty being finalised before the end of the Portuguese Presidency.
Proposed solutions that appear to be gaining ground would divide the constitutional treaty text into two parts – one summing up fundamental provisions on values, objectives, institutions and competances, including a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights; a treaty on policies based on the Nice Treaty, but amended on the basis of the provisions currently contained in Part III of the Constitutional Treaty.
An additional three protocols could be added – the first being the Charter of Fundamental Rights; the second on Climate Change; the third on Social Europe. These protocols would have a legally binding character.
However, a number of fundamental differences still need to be tackled if there is to be agreement at the EU summit at the end of June. These include the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights that was legally binding, an extension in the use of qualified majority voting, giving the EU a legal personality, and the inclusion of references to the primacy of EU law over national law.
Meanwhile civil society organisations are criticising the lack of transparency in the current negotiating process. They argue that contrary to the responses by EU governments to reduce engagement with civil society, there should be more willingness to engage civil society in debate in the process.

Sources:
www.euobserver.com
www.europeanvoice.com www.act4europe.org
www.ct-europe.eu

EU access to medicines scheme under microscope
The European Parliament will next week examine if an EU system aimed at providing affordable medicines to the poor has proven effective.
MEPs are being asked by the European Commission to endorse a proposal for making permanent an EU system introduced last year that provides for the use of compulsory licenses to export drugs under patent to developing countries in cases of a public health emergency.
Although an evaluation of the system had been promised, some MEPs are angry that the Commission wishes them to extend the system before any evaluation has been carried out. Initial reports suggest that the system has not been used to any significant extent in order to ensure wider access to treatment for major diseases including AIDS.
The humanitarian group Médecins sans Frontières has also recently called into question if the EU executive is committed to using compulsory licenses, pointing out that the Union’s trade officials were critical of Thailand for recently deciding to overrule pharmaceutical patents.
The Parliament’s hearing, organised by its committee on international trade, will take place on 5 June.

Sources:
www.europarl.europa.eu
www.msf.org

Italy rejects water privatisation in poor countries
Italy has withdrawn from a World Bank body accused of foisting water privatisation on poor countries.
At a meeting of the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) in The Hague last week, Romano Prodi’s centre-left government announced it would no longer be participating in the body.
“Water is not a commodity and we have to remove it from the logic of privatisation,” said Patrizia Sentinelli, a deputy minister for foreign affairs in Rome, who also called for a United Nations declaration affirming that access to clean water is a universal human right. Italy is the second of 14 donors that have pulled out of the PPIAF; Norway decided to withdraw in February.
Those remaining in it include the European Commission, Germany, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
The PPIAF has been criticised by anti-poverty activists for undertaking “consensus-building” projects, under which aid recipients are persuaded to accept the privatisation of water. Such projects, which can involve lobbying of politicians wary of privatisation, have been carried out in at least 16 countries.
Campaigners believe that its activities undermine the right of poor countries to decide how their public services should be managed. “There are better ways to use limited development aid resources than to push privatisation in poor countries,” said Elena Gerebizza from Italy’s Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale. “It is outrageous that donors continue to channel public money into initiatives that promote private sector interests at the expense of the poorest in the world.”
Meanwhile Severn Trent Water International (STWI) has withdrawn from as sole bidder to take over managing the Kathmandu water supply. This follows a decision by the Nepalese government not to sign a water privatisation contract.
UK based NGO World Development Movement welcomed the decision. “Time and again water privatisation has failed to connect the poor in the developing world to affordable drinking water. It is shocking to learn, from media reports, that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is threatening to terminate its multi-million dollar loan if the privatisation element of the project is not fulfilled. It is yet another blatant example of a donor trying to bully a poor country into doing what it wants” said Vicky Cann, the organisations water campaigner.

Sources:
www.corporateeurope.org
www.wdm.org.uk
www.worldbank.org
www.thehimalayantimes.com

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