Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-06-Speech-3-434"
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"en.20050706.32.3-434"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today’s debate affords me the opportunity to present the report that I have written, on behalf of the Committee on Development, to discuss in particular the effects of the European Union’s lending practices, involving specifically in this instance the European Investment Bank. The primary object of the report that is before you today, and on which you will be asked to vote tomorrow, is to make the European Investment Bank a major, and above all, an effective instrument of development aid.
Today, many of you have shown your support for the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign, and that is, of course, a laudable thing to do, but, if we – as this House has done symbolically – take part in ‘White Band Global Action Day’, we also have to discuss the extent to which the development aid for which we can claim credit to date actually does what we, again and again – not least to the outside world – claim that it does. Today’s poverty already has a history, and part of that history has to do with the mistakes that have been made in development finance over recent years and have had the consequence that today, still, 2 736 million people – amounting to almost half the world’s population – have less than two dollars a day on which to live.
I would like to return to an element in this morning’s debate that I regard as directly relevant to this report. Movements in Africa have been persistently critical of the way in which the countries of the North exercise control over them; what they want from us above all else is an all-out war on poverty, hunger and disease, and an agreement on our part to the complete and unconditional cancellation of the poorest countries’ debts, so let us give them that. They also call for more, and in particular better, resources to be allocated to development aid than have been to date.
There is no doubt that one of the errors of the past – and one that has to be addressed with reference to the European Investment Bank – was the lack of coordination among the various bodies involved in development finance. Despite the Barcelona agreement, they still, to far too great a degree, operate in parallel – the Commission alongside the Member States, multilateral and national development banks side by side – and ultimately counter-productively. It is for that reason that this report attaches great importance to the need for the EIB, in taking up its new tasks, to give priority to coherence, transparency and, above all coordination, from the very outset.
Among the most fateful errors, though, was the widespread attempt to use what was termed ‘development finance’ as a means of developing our own economic relationships abroad and enabling European businesses to open up markets in the South. If you take a look at the limitations placed upon the European Investment Bank’s mandate, particularly as regards loans in Asia and Latin America, you find that virtually word for word. The European Investment Bank’s shareholders, namely the Member States of the European Union and the Commission, are currently engaged in negotiating a new mandate for the EIB to grant loans outside the EU, but these negotiations are, I believe, actually being conducted to an increasing extent by financial experts, with less and less involvement of experts on development. Nor, so far, have they drawn on Parliament’s expertise. Yet this new mandate must contain a clear commitment to the tasks particularly associated with the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and to the combating of poverty in the countries to which money is lent.
In order, though, that this House may be enabled to monitor how this new mandate is worded, it is, I believe, necessary – and something that this report demands – that Members of this House be informed of the progress of negotiations as early as September this year. It is not acceptable that we should be presented with a
. No longer can the progress of the war on poverty be measured only by reference to figures for economic growth, which often – and particularly in the case of rural areas – conceal increasing poverty, or, indeed, by reference to the level of direct foreign investment, which the bank cites as an indicator of success but is not suitable as such, for it says nothing about the number of jobs created or about the effects the investments have on society or the environment. To take an example: today, in Zambia, the EIB is helping Swiss and Canadian companies to start up large-scale copper mining operations; almost all their profits will go out of the country, while toxins will remain in the rivers to ruin agriculture throughout entire regions. Such things may appear in accounts as foreign investments, but they make no measurable contribution to combating poverty.
The report before you today also contains a range of practical proposals as to how the EIB’s loans can, in future, be put to better use in developing countries. These proposals are made in the context of the Millennium Development Goals and in harmony with the UN’s objectives, and a large number of detailed proposals have been made as to how progress can be achieved in this area.
There is one problem that I particularly want to highlight. I believe that the European Investment Bank still pays far from enough heed to the requirement that it should apply the Millennium Development Goals as indicators, enabling it to assess the effects of its own operations after the event. It relies on general data, which I do not believe to be sufficient, particularly when one draws comparisons with the effectiveness with which the national development banks of certain Member States already operate.
It was the tsunami that showed the urgent need for change if the EIB is to be able, in emergencies, to make proper loans independently of external economic criteria and provide really effective help. For this, it needs a clearer mandate from its shareholders, the Member States, so I ask you, tomorrow, to vote to adopt this report, for by so doing you will maintain the productive and cooperative relationship between this House and the European Investment Bank, and we will be enabled to make progress in the field of development aid."@en1
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