Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-053"
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"en.20050412.7.2-053"2
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".
Mr President, the world leaders have the enormous responsibility of giving the agreements reached in 2000 real substance, by halving poverty, sending children to school and eliminating illness. If we apply this to Africa, we have to conclude that the situation is tragic in all these respects, because instead of bringing those goals towards 2015 closer, we are moving further away from them. At this rate, we will not achieve them in 100 years. This creates an image of incompetence on the part of world leadership, especially where Africa is concerned. That there is no need for this is clear from Mr Geoffrey Sachs’ recent report. Given sufficient funding, sound priorities in place and a sufficiently campaign-based focus, malaria could, for example, be eradicated, children – particularly girls – could go to school, and poverty could be halved.
As the Commissioner has already said, the UN Summit in September will offer the opportunity to clinch millennium deals. That is why it is, of course, extremely important that the Commission and the Council should translate the agreements reached at that Summit into European objectives for the EU. As the Commissioner said, we can do this by means of funding at Member State level, but also by this House and the Council giving multi-annual funding sufficient priority, and this being reflected in the percentage for social expenditure of the millennium goals, including, in particular, this 20% for basic education and basic health care. The current figures – 2% for education, 6% for health care, also in the European Development Fund figures – are alarming.
I would urge not only the Commission and the Council, but also Parliament, to really take these requirements on board, so that we can avoid a confrontation and can together back this initiative all the way. We are prepared to give the Commission leeway in the implementation, provided that the agreements are uncompromising; above all, they need to be laid down clearly and effectively, because the current levels of 2% and 6% are really unacceptable. We would have to wait for another 100 years, and that we refuse to do."@en1
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