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 In the European Voice's special report on development last week, the chair of the European Parliament's development committee, Spanish Socialist MEP Josep Borrell Fontelles, identifies the 2009 mid-term review of the EU budget as a key opportunity to resolve the much-criticised separation of the European Development Fund (EDF), the instrument that channels EU aid to all African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, from the general budget. Both the European Commission (EC) and the European Parliament (EP) have for years been urging the Council of Ministers to authorise such a move in order to improve the transparency and democratic scrutiny of development co-operation.
Borrell Fontelles says that the EDF is currently an anomaly in that it is the only EU expenditure that does not have to be authorised by the EP. Parliament passed a resolution in April which called for the incorporation of the EDF into the EU budget and the consultation of national parliaments at every stage of the drafting of strategy papers. The EP has argued that ‘budgetisation' of the EDF would improve the legitimacy, transparency and efficiency of development co-operation with the ACP states. According to Bernard Petit, the EC's deputy director general for development policy, "there is no reason at all" for the EDF to stay outside the budget. "We have always proposed budgetisation, and it has never been accepted, not for economic or political reasons, but just for small financial reasons." Petit explains that the main reason that the Council of Ministers have opposed it is that some member states fear they will end up paying more, because each member state's contribution to the general EU budget is determined by different measurements of wealth from those used for the EDF. "When a country pays much more [proportionately] in the EDF than in the budget ... that country wants the fund to be budgetised. Others think it is better to have the EDF outside, because they pay less." Sources: |
