Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-249"
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"en.20071128.23.3-249"2
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"Madam President, I welcome Mr Arif’s report. It is, as you would expect from Mr Arif, a well-argued and well-balanced report.
However, I regret that, once again, the EU has to pick up the bill for Israel’s propensity, in the Middle East, to drop bombs first and worry about the consequences later.
It is true that Lebanon had financial difficulties before the conflict with Israel in the summer of 2006, but that war was, perhaps, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Lebanon, as Mr Arif has said, is now one of the most indebted countries in the world and, according to the UNDP, almost one in four Lebanese lives in complete destitution.
We have in Lebanon, despite the problems that it faces, a government determined to bring about economic stability. In such a situation, it is right that we should be prepared to provide macro-financial assistance to assist in that recovery. Mr Arif is right to argue for safeguards to ensure that we have appropriate policies for tackling corruption and to make sure that funding is not abused. The right mechanism for doing that is through absolute transparency in the granting and spending of the money, proper monitoring of expenditure and ex-post evaluation of the measures taken.
Lebanon, as the Commissioner has indicated, has become one of the EU’s partner countries in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The money from that policy will not be available until 2009 or 2010, but when that funding does become available I look forward to the EU assisting in the social and economic reforms in Lebanon. In the interim, macro-financial assistance can make a big difference in helping Lebanon tackle its indebtedness and help bring stability to its government. I therefore welcome it."@en1
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