Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-168"
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"en.20001129.10.3-168"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by emphasising the quality of Mrs Sauquillo's own-initiative report on the reform of the Commission and its impact on the effectiveness of the European Union's relations with the developing countries.
One of the great merits of this report is that it highlights the crucial need for the European Union and its Member States to conduct a large-scale development policy, which alone can reflect the culture and influence of our continent.
First let me remind you of a few statistics, to avoid any complexes about our current activities. We must say it and repeat it: the European Union and its Member States provide more than half the public development aid. Contrary, therefore, to what is often assumed, the Community is committing itself more and more, in the strict sense of providing European aid. Thirty years ago, it provided 7% of international aid; today the figure is 17%.
In 1990, total external aid from the European Union accounted for EUR 3 billion. Today, ten years later, the figure is nearly EUR 9 billion. Of course this is not enough, but it should at least protect us from caricatures about our poor record of development aid.
Nonetheless, we have to remember one incontrovertible fact. It is that some Member States pursue their own development policies alongside the European policy.
In my view we can improve the global situation if we take a pragmatic approach and try to coordinate the Member States' activities as closely as possible with those of the Community. At that price, I believe, we can achieve complementarity.
In any case, that is in line with the declaration on regional policy of 10 November, an important Council and Commission policy. It introduces a division of labour between the Commission and the Member States, on the basis of their comparative advantages.
In my view, we must beware of two equally dangerous traps: the gradual renationalisation of development aid on the one side, on the other a Utopian vision of the Commission as the sole player in the development aid field. Nevertheless, the reform of the European Commission is moving in the right direction in proposing both more effective action by the Commission and giving more responsibility to the beneficiaries of the development projects. Of course, as some speakers have pointed out, that raises the question of human resources, which have been inadequate until now. I shall not dwell on that point.
Let me conclude by emphasising three amendments I tabled on behalf of the PPE Group, Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4. The underlying idea is to turn the European Union into an active rather than passive partner in development aid, but also the concern to improve the use of the allocated funds. The PPE Group will vote for Mrs Sauquillo's report, while hoping the amendments it has tabled can be incorporated."@en1
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