Monday

4th Dec 2023

Global North-South inequality — can the EU do anything?

  • EU commissioner for international partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, at the event. Some 3.4 billion people (nearly half of the world's population) live on less than €5.20 a day (Photo: EC - Audiovisual Service)
Listen to article

Global inequality is growing, and the future of the world will depend largely on relations between North and South, said MEP Udo Bullmann (S&D) at a high-level panel in the European Parliament on Tuesday (10 October).

"Half of the global wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small coup of the richest, while 3.8 billion people live in absolute poverty," Bullmann stressed. "It is not defendable, because it is so deeply unjust".

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

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

... or subscribe as a group

Food insecurity, climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine have only exacerbated existing inequalities — and while they affect everyone, they don't reach everyone equally.

The so-called 'polycrisis' is hitting the poorest hardest. Nearly half of the world's population live on less than $5.5 (€5.2) a day, according to Oxfam.

Women, young people and people with disabilities are also disproportionately affected. Globally, women still earn 24 percent less than men and accumulate about 50 percent less wealth.

"We must overcome one of the major challenges our world is facing, and that is increasing inequalities," said EU commissioner for international partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen.

And because inequalities are a multi-dimensional problem, reducing them means [for the EU] investing in people and the planet, reforming the global financial architecture and promoting inclusive and participatory democracy, according to Urpilainen.

"To reduce inequalities, we need fair and just economy," the commissioner said. "When everyone pays their fair share, countries have more capital available to invest in education, public healthcare systems and strong social protection".

The reality is different. A recent study by the Greens in the European Parliament estimates that the EU's coffers lose up to €59.5bn a year due to tax avoidance by the super-rich in using jurisdictions with little or no tax scrutiny.

The world's wealth and income is also highly-concentrated. In 2022, the world's richest one percent, those with more than $1m, accumulated nearly 46-percent of total wealth.

Oxfam estimates that an annual wealth tax of up to five percent on Europe's billionaires could raise nearly €250bn a year, lifting two billion people out of poverty.

But for now, the commissioner said the EU is helping continents such as Africa to improve their fiscal policies (as some of these countries spend large amounts of their GDP on borrowing costs) and promote domestic resource mobilisation.

Urpilainen also stressed the need to reform the global financial architecture, including the multilateral development banks. "More concessional financing [generally including below-market interest rates] should be made to the most vulnerable partners," she said.

Within the EU's room for manoeuvre, civil society organisations have stressed the need for specific policies (e.g. on wealth distribution) and binding targets or specific inequality lines to set levels of ambition that can be visualised and achieved through their programmes.

"Reducing inequalities goes much further than poverty reduction," director of CONCORD, the European Confederation of NGOs working on sustainable development and international cooperation, Tanya Cox highlighted.

In addition, Cox noted that the funding landscape is changing, and not in their favour, with fewer and much larger calls for proposals in the EU.

As a result, even networks have to join forces with other networks to win these proposals, and resources are not always available at ground level, leading to the outsourcing of programme management and creating something of a "black hole" in terms of the transparency of these EU funds.

"We can't do our job of supporting you in reducing inequalities as the space to do this is shrinking very fast," Cox warned.

The task is also complicated by demographic changes in countries such as those in Africa, where, unlike Europe's ageing population, a large proportion of the population is under the age of 35.

"The best ways to tackle inequalities in the long-term is investing in education," Urpilainen said. "If they don't have access to [quality] education, it is difficult to have access to jobs".

Column

Who's afraid of the Global South?

The once well-organized unipolar world, led by the US with EU support, has evolved as times change. But there is no need to be grumpy or afraid of the Global South and the multipolar world.

Opinion

Towards a new EU relationship with northern Africa

Migration, terrorism and energy — three 'crisis' topics — have preoccupied European policy and their societies' view of their neighbourhood in northern Africa for a long time.

Member states stall on EU ban on forced-labour products

More than two years after the EU Commission first proposed a law on forced labour, inter-institutional negotiations have not started because member states cannot reach agreement — risking the text's adoption before the 2024 European Parliament elections.

Opinion

The EU's U-turn on caged farm animals — explained

A European citizens' initiative — signed by 1.4 million people — saw the EU Commission promise to ban cages for 300 million farmed animals. Then the farming lobby got involved.

Opinion

'Pay or okay?' — Facebook & Instagram vs the EU

Since last week, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta corporation is forcing its European users to either accept their intrusive privacy practices — or pay €156 per year to access Facebook and Instagram without tracking advertising.

Latest News

  1. Afghanistan is a 'forever emergency,' says UN head
  2. EU public procurement reform 'ineffective', find auditors
  3. COP28 warned over-relying on carbon capture costs €27 trillion
  4. Optimising Alzheimer's disease health care pathways across Europe
  5. Georgian far-right leader laughs off potential EU sanctions
  6. The EU's U-turn on caged farm animals — explained
  7. EU-China summit and migration files in focus This WEEK
  8. COP28 debates climate finance amid inflated accounting 'mess'

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  3. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  4. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?
  5. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  6. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  3. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  4. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us