In 2007, European official development aid declined to 0.38% of GDP, after reaching 0.41% in 2006. Yet Member States undertook in 2005 to allocate 0.56% of GDP by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015. An increase of this order is needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
Better coordination between donors
More effective aid-giving requires coordination between the various actors in development aid, stressed Italian MP Paolo Corsini and UK MP Malcolm Bruce. "The obstacles to better coordination of the various EU cooperation programmes are still huge and, whether sectoral or geographical, the distribution of work among Member States runs into great resistance and many difficulties", said Mr Hutchinson.
Spotlight on budgetary aid
"Will there be sufficiently transparent indicators for monitoring the use of funds granted under the heading of budgetary aid?", asked Frijthof Schmidt (Greens/EFA, DE), voicing concerns raised by several parliamentarians at the Commission's stated aim of making more use of this process. 'Budgetary aid' means funds transferred directly to the public budget of a developing partner country.
"Budgetary aid is not a blank cheque", stressed Development Commissioner Louis Michel, pointing to the governance standards required of countries that receive such aid.
Project aid is "lengthier and slower reacting" than budgetary aid, which enables weak states and those undergoing reconstruction to be given funding quickly to pay their public servants (teachers, police, judges, etc.) and carry out certain functions of a state.
A re-orientation of development aid by the new Member States?
The new EU Member States do not necessarily have the same priorities for development aid as the other Member States, underlined Danutė Budreikaitė (ALDE, LT) and Filip Kaczmarek (EPP-ED, PL).
Geographically, "the new Member States concentrate their aid on their neighbours such as the CIS or Balkan states (Serbia and FYROM). "The ACP countries are not necessarily our main focus", said Ms Budreikaitė. Mr Kaczmarek believed "Europe's neighbourhood policy is more important than official development aid".
As to the nature of the aid provided by the new Member States, Ms Budreikaitė said they leaned towards promoting economic and human rights rather than just combating poverty.
By joining the European Union, most new Member States have changed from being net recipients of official aid, through the pre-accession funds, to being donors. The new Member States contribute to the European Development Fund (EDF).
Using the budgetary margins of the CAP
In his speech, Louis Michel stated that he would propose to the Council and the European Parliament that the budgetary margins of the common agriculture policy - the funds not spent in 2008 as export subsidies because of the rise in food prices - be used "to prevent food insecurity leading sooner or later to insecurity, full stop".
