Friday

29th Mar 2024

Charities blame 'lack of political will' for EU aid cuts

  • The EU is set to miss its 0.7% aid pledge to the world's poorest (Photo: European Commission)

The EU's economic crisis took the blame after figures published Wednesday (3 April) revealed that aid to the world's poorest countries fell for the second year in a row.

The statistics released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based economic club, found that aid spending among EU countries as a share of national income fell from 0.45 percent in 2012 to 0.43 percent, well below the 0.7 percent target pledged by 2015.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The decline in spending, which is equivalent to a 4 percent cut in real terms, follows a 2 percent cut in 2011.

Aid budgets across a string of EU countries have been cut as part of national austerity plans.

The biggest aid cuts fell in Spain, which cut assistance by 49 percent to just 0.15 percent of its national income. Italy and Greece, also among the EU countries worst hit by recession in 2012, cut aid by 34 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

At the other end of the table, the UK is expected to join Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands in hitting the 0.7 percent target in 2013, having ring-fenced their aid budgets from cuts.

Eloise Todd, Director of the Brussels office of anti-poverty organisation One, said EU countries risked "reversing the huge progress on extreme poverty that has been made since 2000.”

Meanwhile, Catherine Olier from development organisation Oxfam, dismissed the idea that the crisis prevented countries from hitting aid targets.

"The fact that the UK has kept up its aid shows that other donor countries could stick to their pledges if they cared," she said.

She added: "It’s not an issue of money but of political will."

It is the first time since 1997 that development aid has been cut over successive years.

Despite the decline, the EU with its 27 member states remains the largest aid donor providing aid worth €55 billion, according to the OECD's Development Assistance Committee.

Commenting on the pattern of aid cuts from countries hit hardest by the economic crisis, OECD secretary general Angel Gurría said: “It is worrying that budgetary duress in our member countries has led to a second successive fall in total aid."

However, he took "heart from the fact that, in spite of the crisis, nine countries still managed to increase their aid."

Although EU leaders committed themselves to the 0.7 percent target in February, development spending is also set to be one of the big losers from negotiations on the EU's next seven year budget framework.

Under the spending levels due to start in 2014, €58.7 billion will be allocated to external aid, well down on the €70 billion proposed by the European Commission.

MEPs worried about EU development spending

MEPs want the EU to keep a closer eye on the money it spends on joint EU/UN development projects after major shortcomings were identified in control and efficiency.

EU states drifting from development aid goals

The latest figures on development aid from European Union member states from the OECD suggest that the bloc is drifting away from commitments to deliver 0.7 percent of its gross national income in development assistance by 2015.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us