Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-08-Speech-3-029"
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"en.20031008.5.3-029"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of the European Development Fund (EDF), which provides aid to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific region, and its integration into the European Community budget, is not new to this House. Parliament has repeatedly called for the Fund to be integrated, and has always supported proposals in this direction. It therefore gives me great pleasure to be able to inform you that today the Commission has adopted a communication proposing a complete transfer of the European Development Fund to the Community budget with effect from the next financial perspective.
How would this make EU aid more effective? Within the framework of the EDF, a strong partnership approach has been developed, which should definitely be maintained, as should the principle of ownership and the principle of focusing on eradicating poverty, but it would be far better to create synergies between the various programmes which the European Union budget funds and which also benefit ACP countries. In addition, funding for global aid programmes such as the Global Health Fund could be used better if the Fund were included in the budget.
Administrative procedures would be simplified since there would no longer be two separate systems existing in parallel with each other, with two different financial regulations, two sets of implementing rules, and two different accounting standards. Instead, by harmonising the systems, we would increase efficiency, not only within the Commission services, but also for the authorities in the beneficiary countries and for all those who are involved in implementing the aid. You see, we have to be aware that non-governmental organisations, for example, have to deal with two separate systems, which obviously generates a great deal of paperwork and inefficiency.
What arguments could be put forward opposing the proposal? The ACP countries could possibly be worried that their particular concerns would be forced into second place by other foreign policy priorities, such as crisis situations. We have to allay these fears and the Commission has indeed done so in its communication. For one thing, the aid programme will be guaranteed by a regulation, to be enacted using the codecision procedure, which would include details of the resources to be provided over a given period. Our experience with the budgetary programmes has also shown that the pluriannual approach to aid and the principle of annuality definitely need to be reconciled.
The Commission has not made any firm proposals today about budget figures for the next few years. These will have to be fixed during the forthcoming discussions on the next financial perspective. Nevertheless, the Commission has proposed a number of important measures to protect future funding levels. The current level of aid, for example, will set the minimum for the future, while future economic performance should determine further developments.
Obviously the finance ratios will also feature in future debates – especially in the Council, of course. The financing ratios have to be renegotiated for each new Fund. Consequently the current ratios do not represent any guarantee of future EDF spending. One major benefit the Commission foresees in integrating the EDF into the European budget is that there would no longer be these separate negotiations on the funding ratios for each new Fund.
The European Union provides half of all public development aid worldwide. Last year the European Union provided EUR 31 billion of a total EUR 60 billion in development aid, a figure that includes aid from the Member States along with Community funding. There are currently three sources of Community aid: the Community budget, the European Investment Bank instruments and, of course, the European Development Fund. By including the European Development Fund within the Community budget, European aid would become more visible, and could be more coherently presented; this would represent another important step in the process of strengthening the European Union’s international role.
In order to take this step, a range of proposals for the necessary legal and political implementation need to be submitted and approved in the coming months. The Commission is relying on Parliament’s support for these proposals. Thank you very much.
The Commission is proposing this move because we are convinced that budgetisation will help to increase the effectiveness of aid given to ACP countries, speed up and improve the implementation of that aid, and provide efficiency gains for all parties involved in the process. The proposal is fully in line with the promises made by the European Union at various summits over the past year. At Monterey, for example, the European Union committed itself to increasing total aid to developing countries and to improving processing and coordination, thereby increasing effectiveness.
Parliament is very familiar with the subject of integrating the European Development Fund into the Community budget, and has repeatedly spoken in favour of such a move, one that the Commission has also favoured for a long time. The first proposal on the subject was tabled back in 1973 – 30 years ago – and the idea has been raised several times since, most recently in 1993.
The Member States, however, were never able to agree on how to transfer this special instrument, which has been in place since 1958, to the budget. The Development Fund is special because it is financed directly by the Member States and in accordance with a specific formula.
Nevertheless, it is the Commission that is responsible for the administration of the Fund. Here too, however, different rules apply to those used for other foreign policy instruments. Whilst Parliament has the right and the obligation to give discharge to the Development Fund, it is not involved in determining the amounts involved or what the aid is used for.
Why are we again proposing integrating this non-budgetary fund structure into the Community budget now, in 2003? There are two basic reasons. Firstly, the proposal will benefit all parties, in particular the recipient countries. Secondly, the Commission is convinced that now is the right time, the right opportunity, for this proposal to reappear on the agenda.
I would like to deal with the second of the two reasons first: the right time and circumstances. Three factors have come together. Firstly there is the proposal for reforming the Treaties; the preparatory work carried out by the Convention specifically supported the budgetisation of the EDF, and the constitution it proposed would allow this to be done. The second important factor is enlargement of the European Union. It was agreed in the accession negotiations that the new Member States would not yet contribute to the existing Fund but would participate in negotiations on its successor. The third element is the proposed new EU financial framework for the period following 2006, which is currently under discussion. The communication agreed on today is therefore a practical feature of the new financial package that the Commission is proposing.
Just as important as this window of opportunity, however, are the considerations that I shall now set out. Inclusion of the EDF in the budget would benefit the ACP countries; it would boost the political effectiveness of EU aid and help make the administration of the aid more efficient. The current system of five-yearly negotiations outside the budget system increasingly carries the risk of ACP states being somewhat sidelined politically. The advantage for ACP countries is that with integration in the budget, the aid would instead repeatedly be on the agenda.
The development programmes included in the budget with their annual performance reviews – including by Parliament – actually encourage more efficient processing of aid. It would be also easier to account for existing staff within the Community budget rather than under the current Fund system."@en1
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