MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
29.6.2005
pursuant to Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure
by Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez
on behalf of the PSE Group
on the Global Call to Action Against Poverty: Making Poverty History
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B6-0398/2005
B6‑0410/2005
European Parliament resolution on the Global Call to Action Against Poverty: Making Poverty History
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the ‘Quintet against Hunger’ formed at the World Summit for Action Against Hunger, which led to the Global Call for Action against Poverty launched by President Lula of Brazil at the World Social Forum in January 2005,
– having regard to the demonstrations to be held on 2 July, which are set to mobilise millions of EU citizens in support of making poverty history, making trade fairer and dropping the debt,
– having regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the forthcoming UN High Level Event reviewing progress towards the MDGs in September 2005,
– having regard to the meeting of the Development Council held in May 2005,
– having regard to the G8 Summit to be held in Gleneagles on 6 July 2005 and the UK Presidency of the EU,
– having regard to the work on poverty eradication of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly,
– having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the latter half of 2005 presents an historic opportunity for the EU and its Member States to demonstrate their leadership on development issues at the G8 Summit in Edinburgh, at the MDGs Conference in New York in September and at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December,
B. whereas a child dies unnecessarily of extreme poverty every three seconds, some 1.2 billion people in developing countries live in absolute poverty, 1.1 billion people are without safe water and over 800 million people go to bed hungry every night,
C. whereas combating global poverty will require all donors to increase the quantity and improve the quality of aid, make trade fairer and relieve unsustainable debt,
D. whereas the MDGs are a strategic priority for the EU and underpin the Union’s development policy, whereas, however, the Goals will not be reached at the current rate of progress,
E. whereas much aid remains ‘tied aid’, meaning that money is often given on the condition that goods and services are bought from the donor country; whereas the ‘tying’ of aid is estimated to inflate procurement costs by around USD 5 billion,
F. whereas there is increasing concern that, when aid is granted by some countries, including EU Member States, some forms of foreign aid are counted as ODA when technically this is not the case; whereas this gives a false impression as to how far we are from achieving 0.7 % ODA,
General
1. Welcomes the UK Presidency’s commitment to prioritise development and the fight against poverty with a special focus on Africa; calls on the UK to use its Presidency of the G8 to put poverty at the heart of the international as well as the European agenda;
2. Calls on the EU and its Member States to underline their commitment to the eradication of poverty by seizing the opportunities offered in the coming months; insists that the focus on development policy must remain a key feature of the European Union after 2005, as stated in the Constitutional Treaty currently under ratification;
3. Insists that the MDGs must remain the prime targets for EU development policy in their current form; underlines that efforts must be increased to achieve the Goals and that the goals must not be watered down;
4. Stresses that the EU must put women and girls at the heart of its development policy if it is to make progress on achieving the MDGs; calls on the Commission and Member States to ensure that sexual and reproductive health and rights are put at the heart of the MDGs agenda in September and are recognised as crucial in the fight against HIV/AIDS;
Aid
5. Welcomes the Council’s reaffirmation of its commitment to give a minimum 0.7 % of GDP in aid by 2015, and 0.56 % by 2010, with a target of 0.33 % by 2015 for those Member States having joined after 2002; calls on the Commission and Council to ensure that Member States live up to these promises by establishing a monitoring mechanism that enables Member States’ aid levels to be examined in a transparent way at all future Development Council meetings;
6. Calls on the Commission to do more to coordinate the aid efforts of the EU and Member States;
7. Expresses concern that only three Member States (the UK, Ireland and Sweden) have completely untied their bilateral aid; criticises some Member States for ‘tying’ up to 92 % of their aid; calls on all EU Member States to offer their aid to developing countries free of ‘ties’ and to comply with the EU doctrine that aid contracts be awarded to local, regional or national contractors wherever possible;
8. Urges Member States and the Commission to ensure that all bilateral and EU aid qualifies as real Overseas Development Aid as stipulated by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) criteria; calls on the EU and Member States to ensure that DAC rules respect the specificity of development aid and not to allow security-related expenditure to be counted as development assistance;
9. Calls on all donors, EU and Member States, not to spend more than 8 % of donor aid on administrative costs;
10. Insists that the EU prioritise development policy in budgetary and political terms; calls on the Council to ensure that the ongoing and future debates on the EU budget result in at least 70 % of aid being given to low-income countries and that the utmost is done to ensure that the majority of ODA is given to the poorest people within these countries;
11. Calls on the Commission and Member States to spend at least 20 % of their development aid on health and education; notes with concern that both the EU and Member States are far from achieving this target; underlines that without significant investment in human development and health care the Millennium Development Goals will not be reached;
Trade and coherence
12. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take all necessary steps to ensure that the outcome of the Doha Round is fundamentally pro-development and serves the interests of those in the world’s poorest countries;
13. Underlines the importance of fair trade in working towards poverty eradication; welcomes the pledges made by the Commission in the European Parliament in June to give more technical and budgetary support to fair trade producers and for the commitment to increase coherence between all policies of the EU, and particularly development, trade and agriculture;
14. Calls on the EU and its Member States to stop dumping agricultural products on the world market that lead to a reduction in the world price of produce from developing countries; calls for an end to all export subsidies as a first step towards making trade in agricultural produce more equitable for developing countries, and for the phasing out of market-distorting subsidies by the EU;
15. Calls on the Commission to provide adequate technical assistance to developing countries, particularly so they can respect international core social and labour standards;
16. Calls for the Commission and Member States to ensure better market access for developing countries’ products, and to prioritise this increased access in ongoing and future negotiations on the common agricultural policy; calls on the European Commission to ensure that its call for coherence between policy areas is acted upon;
17. Calls, to this end, on the UK Presidency to consider launching an initiative to bring development concerns into the mainstream of all policy areas as it did for environment policy with the ‘Cardiff Process’ during its last Presidency in 1998;
Debt and alternative financing
18. Calls on EU Member States to ensure that all debt relief is additional to aid commitments; calls on the UK in particular to insist upon this at the G8 Summit with the US, which has made pledges on debt relief at the expense of more generous aid commitments;
19. Insists that all creditors, and especially international institutions and national governments, must phase out the developing world’s debt, cancelling the poorest countries’ debt where such relief is needed to reach the MDGs;
20. Calls on the Commission and Member States to take the lead, in multilateral and bilateral fora, by phasing out the external debt of all developing countries;
21. Underlines that debt relief should prioritise LDCs and only be undertaken on the condition that money gained by governments from such relief be channelled towards helping the poorest in their communities;
22. Calls on the Commission and Member States to look into developing taxes on international financial transfers in order to raise further development funds; insists that any alternative methods of financing for development should be supported only to raise additional funds for development and must not replace ODA;
23. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the EU Member States and their parliaments, the Heads of Government of the G8 nations, the UN Secretary-General, the governments of the ACP countries and the Least Developed Countries.