EU Accountability Report on financing for Development

The 2011 EU Official Development Assistance Peer Review deals with successes but also where more should be done.

EU committed itself to help developing countries reach the Millennium Goals, achieving 0.7% Official Development Aid by 2015, commitments on aid effectiveness, debt, climate finance… etc

EU has not reached the 0.7% target and, with the crisis, is unlikely to do so in a near future.

Greens believe in a change of policy:

- addressing tax havens, tax evasion with binding measures

- implementing art 208 of the Lisbon treaty on Policy Coherence by matching words with actions: with coherent policies between trade, agriculture and fisheries

 - addressing farmland acquisition by foreign investors, with the risk of undermining food security such as in Africa

- putting in place fair trade rules to break the vicious circle whereby developing countries are locked in dire poverty despite agricultural and mineral resources. The trade pattern where developing countries export raw materials and buy manufactured products from industrialised countries has to change.

The next report on EU’s Accountability should include the above-mentioned policy changes as well as its financial commitments.