Eurostep Weekly 476

Eurostep weekly

Russia disputes EU claim to top IMF job
The European Union’s insistence on deciding who should fill the top post at the International Monetary Fund has been challenged by Russia.
Last week (22 August), Moscow announced that it would propose Josef Tosovsky, formerly governor of the Czech central bank, as the IMF’s managing director.
Russia’s move is in protest at efforts by the EU’s finance ministers to have French Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn appointed to this post. Under a tacit agreement applying since the Fund’s inception in 1945, the decision on who should lead this body has been taken by the most powerful European nations, with the decision on who should head its sister organisation, the World Bank, taken by the US.
Alexei Mozhin, Russia’s executive director at the IMF, argued that Strauss Kahn is a “career politician” lacking the qualifications needed for the post made vacant by the recent resignation of Rodrigo Rato, the Fund’s current managing director.
However, the Czech government has made clear that it is not supporting efforts to have one of its nationals net this post. Instead, Prague is backing Strauss Kahn’s candidacy.
Both anti-poverty activists and poor countries have long deemed as anachronistic the procedure for who should head the IMF, a key body in determining how the international economy is managed.
Meanwhile, the IMF has been recently examining how its main instrument for lending to low-income countries should be reformed.
Earlier this year, the Fund’s own Independent Evaluation Office released a report on how the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility have fared in sub-Saharan Africa in 1999-2005. The report concluded that the IMF has been preventing the expenditure of development aid in countries where it deems inflation to be too high or foreign exchange reserves to be too low. In July, the Fund committed itself to “generally supporting the full spending and absorption of aid provided that macroeconomic stability is maintained” in recipient countries. But it has so far shied away from recommending any far-reaching reforms to the instrument.

Sources:
www.euobserver.com
www.ft.com
www.brettonwoodsproject.org

Clearer link on urgent & long-term aid sought
A new blueprint for improving EU humanitarian aid “must be clearer” in drawing links between responses to emergencies and longer-term development assistance, the European Parliament has been told.
The Parliament’s development committee this week (27 August) considered a report by French Liberal Thierry Cornillet on EU humanitarian aid.
It argues that a paper put forward by the European Commission in June on strengthening humanitarian aid should be “more specific” in outlining the relationship between the immediate responses to disasters and longer-term actions aimed at reducing poverty.
Because climate change is triggering a growing number of disasters, Cornillet also contends that there should be an increase in funding for disaster risk reduction measures in both the Union’s programmes related to humanitarian aid and development assistance.
Although EU humanitarian aid was used to provide comfort to more than 100 million people last year, Cornillet argues that aid needs are greater than the resources provided for them. In 2000-05, the European Commission’s humanitarian office (ECHO) had an average budget of €543 million, but during those years its financial allocations had to be supplemented by funds from an emergency reserve.
Cornillet says, too, that there are “structural weaknesses” in how the EU handles humanitarian issues. He complains, for example, that cooperation between ECHO and the Commission’s directorate-general for environment has been unsatisfactory.

Sources:
www.europarl.europa.eu

EU sends election team to Ecuador
Portuguese MEP José Ribeiro e Castro has been appointed head of an EU mission to observe elections in Ecuador scheduled for 30 September.
A core election monitoring team, consisting of 10 members, was dispatched to Ecuador on 23 August. It is to be augmented by a further 60 short-term observers closer to polling day. The elections will decide the composition of a constituent assembly set up following a referendum in April.
The referendum was held following calls by the country’s left-wing President Rafael Correa for a new constitution. Correa has argued that the constitution should place limits on the powers of political parties, who he holds responsible for Ecuador’s economic problems.
Correa’s arguments are similar to those put forward by his ideological kindred spirits, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. However, his critics have expressed fears that he is seeking to have too much power centred in the president’s own hands.

Sources:
www.europa.eu
www.iht.com

Sudan in new spat with EU
Sudan has accused the European Commission of seeking to meddle in its internal affairs.
The Khartoum government last week (23 August) ordered the Commission’s chief representative in Sudan, Swedish official Kent Degerfelt, to leave the country. Sudan has regarded calls by the Commission to release opposition figures as an assault on its national sovereignty, alleging that these figures have been plotting to overthrow the government.
But Degerfelt was later given permission to remain in the country, after talks between Louis Michel, the European commissioner for development, and the Khartoum government.
Meanwhile, the African Union announced on 12 August that he has been promised a sufficient number of troops to launch a new peace-keeping mission in Sudan’s war-torn province of Darfur. While it is intended that the mission should be a ‘hybrid’ one involving both African Union and UN troops, Sudan has been reluctant to allow soldiers from outside Africa to be deployed in Darfur.
Alpha Oumar Konaré, chairman of the African Union Commission, said he believes the pledges from his organisation are adequate “to not need to resort to non-African troops”.
Yet Human Rights Watch (HRW) has expressed concern about this statement. It said that the Darfur is due to be the most complex peace-keeping operation ever undertaken and its success in protecting civilians could depend on having experienced commanders and massive logistical support.
Human rights activists believe the African Union on its own does not have the wherewithal for such a mission, which is due to involve 19,500 soldiers and 6,500 civilians (including nearly 3,800 police).

Sources:
www.reliefweb.int
www.europa.eu
www.hrw.org

Novartis loses case on Indian drugs law
An Indian court has rejected a bid by the leading pharmaceutical firm Novartis to water down a national law allowing for patents on some medicines to be waived.
Novartis had mounted a legal challenge to a 2005 Indian law, which makes it difficult for firms to obtain patents on minor modifications to existing drugs.
The firm had argued that this law violated rules set by the World Trade Organisation. But this argument was rejected by a High Court in the city of Chennai on 6 August.
MEPs from across the political spectrum had called on Novartis to drop its case.
The organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomed the court ruling, pointing out that India is the principal manufacturer of generic medicines that have proven vital in treating patients with AIDS and other major killers in poor countries.
“This outcome is a major relief for millions of patients and doctors in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India,” said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, an access to medicines campaigner with MSF.

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

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