Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-06-Speech-3-130"
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"en.20020206.6.3-130"2
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". – Mr President, it is very important to stick to the view that volume matters when we talk about these problems. It is also very important to remember that fighting global poverty is not a short-term repair job in the poor countries. We often hear the view that, since we have been giving development aid to Africa for 25 or 30 years and they are still poor, maybe the whole approach is wrong. That is a fundamental mistake. This is not a short-term project. Any global society with just a minimum of decency has to understand that the transfer of resources from the rich to the poor must be a permanent feature.
That approach alters the focus of the discussion about what is wrong with development cooperation. In fact, it holds the key to understanding what globalisation means, and it means taking an inclusive approach to viewing the real world. We had better get used to the idea that a permanent transfer is part of the challenge facing us. This is not the same as accepting that development cooperation should simply deteriorate into becoming some sort of social gap-filling. The whole agenda for structural or political reform vis-à-vis governance is absolutely essential to achieving real progress. But it makes a big difference if seen as something we will have to do for some more years or as part of the future. The whole attitude of different countries to the idea of sharing in this and of this being inseparable from the world view in general is crucial.
Mrs Dybkjaer and Mrs Boudjenah mentioned the 0.7 % target for the EU. This is on our agenda for the first time. It has never really been discussed at EU level before, either between the Commission and the Member States or between Member States themselves. So we have made it a new area of discussion. We have established some sort of peer pressure and the response from the series of discussions in capital cities that we carried out before Laeken was in a sense encouraging because all Member States reacted positively to the need to establish some sort of calendar. In this area decision-making still lies with the Member States – the Commission has acquired no new powers here – but this discussion is now legitimate and we will bring it to the fore as one aspect of our input for the Conference in Monterrey.
This discussion will not end at Monterrey; it is a reflection of how Europe sees itself and the role it should play in the world that we want to move forward in this area.
In response to Mr van den Berg and Mr van den Bos, who both commented on the imbalance between military and development spending and the whole philosophy behind this, I would point to the general view that the cradle of European and Western civilisation was ancient Greece. Personally, I think it was home to the kind of Europe I want to represent and is the part of Greek history with which I want to identify. I think and hope that for Europe the cradle was in fact Athens rather than Sparta. This is my response to what Members said about the balance between the military approach and this more humanistic or morally driven way of defining our role and our philosophy in this world.
This is the baggage we will be taking to Monterrey and this is, philosophically speaking, the message we will deliver there."@en1
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