Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-464"
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"en.20080422.54.2-464"2
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"Madam President, it is becoming clear in the example of Africa that the much vaunted development cooperation does not usually go quite so much to plan as one would like to imagine. All too often it is used to promote exports from donor countries and sometimes to support dictators or even merely to create new dependencies using debt management policy.
In this context the latest ambitions of China and India on the African continent should be treated from a European viewpoint with the utmost scepticism. Here low-cost countries, which are damaging the European economy on a massive scale, are apparently trying to secure sources of cheap raw materials and open up new outlets. This kind of persistent neo-colonialism – as I would like to call it – of Africa by China and India would at one blow negate all the efforts of Western policy to date. Beijing or New Delhi cannot be allowed to incite nations that have recently had their debts written off to borrow and create new dependencies merely to secure supplies of raw materials. By the same token, African nations should not be allowed to hold up their hands all too eagerly to receive development aid when they are not even prepared to take back their own citizens when they are seized as illegal immigrants by Frontex off the coasts of Europe.
On the basis of the global balance of power, we as Europeans shall be made to look exceedingly ridiculous, however, if we try to exert pressure on China. Nor does China shy away from doing business with governments that are pilloried internationally, such as Sudan, for instance. Nor does it shy away either from supplying weapons to Zimbabwe. For a country in which human rights and democracy, environmental protection and sustainability currently continue to have such little importance, this approach is probably not totally illogical either.
As regards Africa, we therefore need a policy that demands stability, democracy and human rights, as well as – and this is the most important point – one that has European interests in mind. The European Union must not hand out money indefinitely in Africa without linking it to objectives in terms of content and policy. The approach so far has bestowed a vacuum on us, which has resulted in waves of migration, human rights violations and great poverty. The ambitions of China and India will probably push this even further if we do not ultimately make a U-turn. We Europeans cannot continue to finance humanitarian projects alone and allow other powers, such as China and India in this case, to continue their major trading operations."@en1
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