Nirj Deva, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Development. – Madam President, I will speak on behalf of the Committee on Development. Less than six months ago, this House backed my proposals to establish stronger ties between the EU development community, the DCI and the private sector, legislating a revolution in development financing and one not reliant on the age-old method of simply spending more of the taxpayers’ money. At a stroke we turned 4.8 billion into 68 billion through leveraged finance with the private sector. Yet this budget, I seem to think, takes no account either of my report or of the state and aspirations of the Juncker plan. Far from encouraging public-private sector partnerships, we have chosen just to increase spending by a further 2.8 billion.

We have chosen – or it would appear that we have chosen – to ignore the manifest potential of the private sector to bridge an admittedly daunting funding gap, and to bring local expertise to our project. If the Juncker plan is to be anything but a fantasy in Mr Juncker’s head, then the Commission must embrace fully the potential of private—public partnerships and the financial potential this begets. While recognising that increases to the migration asylum budget may help migrants, it will not stop migration. Migration will only be stopped by investing in those countries and eliminating poverty, and for that we need an enormous amount of money. And knowing that the Commissioner, Vice-President Georgieva’s background is in development ...

(The President cut off the speaker)