Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-16-Speech-4-111"
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"en.19990916.7.4-111"2
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"Mr President, the European Commission has now woken up to the fact that the aid and assistance granted to Russia is being abused. However, it has been abused for ten years now, and this is how the basic structures of Russian society have been destroyed. Aid has been both used wrongly and granted wrongly. We in the European Union have granted it in the wrong way. Corruption is a fine word for what has happened. The whole of the upper stratum of society is party to this corruption. In this we cannot trust the president, his family, the government ministers, or even the central bank. It is unbelievable that the central bank has recycled the aid granted it by the IMF through companies that merely exist on paper on the tax evaders’ isle of Jersey. We just speak of corruption, but we do not say directly that this is a matter of criminal activity. The reason for this criminal activity has also been the aid granted by the West. The West has given aid for the wrong reasons.
A typical example is the relief aid granted to Russia last winter in the form of food aid. It was meant to help Russia to escape a winter of starvation and survive the sub-zero temperatures at the beginning of the year. But this aid has not yet reached its destination. We gave Russia relief aid in the form of food to cover the time of the winter frosts, and that food is still on its way to Russia. That food is being sold in Russian shops, and thus the price of Russian agricultural produce and food is being caused to tumble, and farmers’ hopes of practising their own food production are being dashed. Above all, we must say, from the point of view of the taxpayers in the EU, that if we wanted to give Russia’s social sector aid equal to the cost of a pension we should have given it money, not food. Food aid was an agricultural policy, which cost us taxpayers a lot more than if a corresponding amount of social aid had been given in the form of money. With this in mind, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament should look in the mirror and recognise their own mistakes. Aid has been used wrongly, but it has definitely been given wrongly."@en1
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