Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-131"
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"en.20010404.6.3-131"2
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"Mr President, I want to welcome Mr Miranda's initiative in asking this question and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Commissioner Lamy on his splendid initiative on 'Everything but arms', which we were associated with in Parliament, but did not have very much to do with. It must be pointed out that the poorest and the least developed countries must be given special attention and, in the process, elimination of extreme poverty should be the primary goal. According to UNCTAD calculations, while the gross domestic product of 49 LDCs rose by no more than 0.9% per year in real terms between 1990 and 1998, worldwide GDP grew by more than 2.5% per year.
Good governance is a key issue in the LDCs. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that there are many countries which are nominally democratic, but where, owing to their lack of an effective and fair legal system, there is no freedom for their people. We in this Parliament should promote the rule of law as an essential criterion when we look at good governance criteria. It is a matter of record also that the proportion of our aid budgets that goes to the LDCs has fallen while the proportion that goes to middle-ranking countries, such as Morocco and Algeria, has risen. This is absolutely wrong. The aid budget must concentrate on the poorest. That is what our citizens expect and require. Using the aid budget as some sort of underhand immigration policy is wrong. Have an anti-immigration policy, by all means, but be honest about it. We must not rob the poorest countries to achieve our own political ends.
Drastic reductions in the debt burden of heavily indebted poor countries are urgently needed as action taken so far under the HIPC initiative will, as a result of falling raw material prices, be completely inadequate for any sustained financial relief. I must also stress the need to guarantee funds to be set up or topped up in order to provide incentives for greater private investment and for the implementation of measures to encourage small loan arrangements, such as those introduced by the Gramien Bank in Bangladesh.
Finally, we must do everything we can to prevent conflict. Conflict prevention is a key to helping the LDCs grow."@en1
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