Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-009"
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"en.20050511.3.3-009"2
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".
Mr President, as Commissioner responsible for relations with international financial institutions, I am grateful for this opportunity to explain to Parliament the Commission’s views on our institution’s relations with the World Bank.
Nevertheless, however important it may be to make this effort, it is not enough. Apart from aid, the policies of the developed countries have an enormous influence on the possibility of the developing countries achieving the Millennium Objectives and, in this regard, the Commission is stressing the importance of the coherence of development policies and for the first time is making commitments in this regard in these communications.
With regard to relations with the World Bank, I would like to refer to two issues: operational cooperation between the Commission and the Bank, and the European Union's representation in the governing of the World Bank.
Relations between the Commission and the World Bank are long-standing. We share the same agenda in terms of reducing poverty and, of course, we share the same Millennium Objectives. The World Bank is working to achieve these objectives, by means of its principal operational lines and by assessing the progress made towards achieving these objectives within the context of the Global Monitoring Report.
The Commission and the Bank cooperate closely in the provision of aid, by means of the Trust Fund Agreement, signed in 2001 and amended in 2003. This cooperation led to the Union's participation in various trust funds, with a total contribution of more than EUR 1 500 million since 2000.
Other examples include the funds for combating AIDS and specific funds, such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC).
Furthermore, both the Commission and the Bank increasingly work on the basis of national poverty reduction strategies defined by the developing countries themselves.
In addition to these global objectives, cooperation with the World Bank also focuses on certain priority geographical areas, with regard to which we carry out joint analyses, hold joint dialogues on policies and work to coordinate financial programming for the countries closest to the Union’s borders. We are not, therefore, just talking about coordinated action between the World Bank and the European institutions in countries that already belong to the Union, but also, of course, the candidate countries and the neighbourhood policy countries, such as the Western Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East, and countries belonging to the Community of Independent States.
With regard to these countries, the Union’s cooperation, by means of the Commission and the World Bank, is aimed at ensuring that the policies applied are complementary and contribute to the incorporation of the
and places particular emphasis on institutional development, the environment and its infrastructures, economic reform and development of the private sector.
To this end, over the last five years, the Commission and, sometimes, the European Investment Bank have signed three memorandums of understanding with the World Bank.
These memorandums serve as a practical framework for enhanced cooperation in terms of economic dialogue and technical and financial assistance. They cover the coordination of our activities in the fields covered by the Union’s neighbourhood policy and over the coming months the memorandum of understanding is going to be extended to the new Member States and the candidate countries, with a view to including the Western Balkans.
The World Bank and the European Union are the two main world players in the fight against poverty and in the funding of development aid.
I would like, finally, to comment on the Union’s representation in the governing bodies of the World Bank.
184 States currently belong to the bank, including the 25 Member States of the European Union. In the Bank, the percentage of votes for these Member States of the Union is 28%, whilst the United States have 16%.
Nevertheless, that 28% does not in practice reflect the Union’s real weight. The European Union’s contribution to funding granted is even greater than that 28%. In this regard, the example provided by the latest review of the International Development Association (IDA) is revealing. On this occasion, there has been a spectacular change in the contributions of the donors, with the European share increasing from 48 to 60%, while that of the United States has dropped to 13.8%, the lowest in the history of the organisation.
Despite these figures demonstrating the Union’s participation, both in the Bank's capital and in its funding, we are not taking full advantage of that weight as a result of the lack of unified Union representation in the Bank's governing bodies. And thus, despite the fact that, numerically, the Member States of the Union dominate the Bank’s governing council, overall they have less influence than the United States.
The Commission currently participates solely as an observer in the meetings of the Bank’s Development Committee, the main decision-making body of that institution. This situation is the same as the situation in the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the International Monetary Fund and is in clear contrast with the European Union’s influence on development cooperation compared to its effective influence in the World Bank or in the life of the international monetary system, by means of our single currency, in the case of the International Monetary Fund.
The Commission has been insisting that, if the Union wishes to put an end to the disparity between its influence and its contributions and aspires to a greater presence on the international stage, it must speak with a single voice. If it is able to present a single European position, the Union will increase its visibility and its influence. In this regard, it should be noted that there has been a little progress in the Union’s coordination with the Bank’s governing bodies.
For example, since last year, the executive directors in the World Bank from the European Union have been holding annual meetings with Members of this Parliament, with the Commission and with representatives of non-governmental organisations.
The Union’s executive directors in the World Bank have agreed to meet on a weekly basis to exchange opinions and a Commission official from our delegation in Washington participates regularly in these meetings.
The Commission is working to improve the coordination of the European executive directors in Washington, but the ultimate objective must be unified representation of the Union within the governing bodies of the World Bank. Before taking that decision, of course, it will be necessary carefully to examine its legal and budgetary implications, but this must not prevent us from seriously analysing how to make progress towards this objective.
In conclusion, our cooperation with the World Bank is long-standing and intense, particularly in terms of supporting the developing countries. The Commission wishes to maintain and enhance these excellent working relations and to improve coordination, both with the World Bank at operational level and amongst the representatives of the Member States in the Bank's governing bodies. In this way, the Union would be speaking with a single voice and would have the influence it deserves within the Bank.
This Parliament is well aware that the Union provides around half of the total public aid to the developing countries, and that, furthermore, in the majority of cases, the Union is their main trading partner, which reflects the emphasis placed on solidarity within our international policy.
The main objective of the Community’s development policy is to reduce, and ultimately to eliminate, poverty. This means supporting sustainable economic, social and environmental development, promoting the gradual integration of the developing countries into the world economy and combating inequality.
As the honourable Members are aware, the Union has made a firm commitment to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Objectives, by means of more and better funding of development aid, greater coherence amongst development policies and, in particular, greater attention to Africa.
In relation to each of these issues, on the proposal of my colleague Mr Michel, the Commission has recently proposed specific actions, which I believe Louis Michel has had the opportunity to debate in this Parliament.
I would like to comment briefly on the first two issues: levels of funding and the need to improve coherence amongst our development policies.
In relation to funding, at the Monterey Summit, the Union announced its commitment to increasing official development aid from the level we were at in 2002, 0.33% of GDP, to 0.39% in 2006, as a first step towards compliance with the objective of 0.7% in 2015.
Last month the Commission proposed two additional and interrelated objectives for 2010: an intermediate objective, for the whole of the Union, of 0.56% of GDP in development aid, and an individual objective in official development aid for each of the Member States, which would be a minimum of 0.51% for the Member States which belonged to the Union before enlargement and 0.17% in 2010 for the new Member States."@en1
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