Convention may ‘weaken EU’s anti-poverty drive’

Date: 06/02/03

By David Cronin

THE Convention on the future of the EU presents a threat to the Union's efforts to alleviate poverty, a top official has warned.

Koos Richelle, the European Commission's director-general for development, is troubled by indications that the body chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing could try to weaken the EU's commitment to overseas aid.

He expressed particular concern over secretive discussions in the Convention's board, the praesidium, about setting a "catalogue of competences" for the Union.

One idea being studied by the 13-member board is that development aid would become the preserve of national governments, instead of a key area of EU policy.

Objecting to that notion, Richelle said: "If you put foreign policy into the area of shared competence, then development and humanitarian aid should also be."

He also feels that the praesidium is taking too much of a "legalistic approach" to devising a European constitution. "The attention is very much focused on having a president of the Council [of Ministers]," he said. "You don't see very much in the papers concerning development cooperation."

Richelle joined Sally Keeble, the UK's under secretary of state for international development, and several charities in voicing reservations about the Convention's focus at a Brussels seminar last weekend.

According to Keeble, there is a risk development could become subordinate to foreign policy objectives such as the fight against terrorism.

It is vital, she added, that the Commission maintains its power to administer aid; it currently handles one-fifth of all grants from the rich world to poor countries and is the single biggest donor of humanitarian assistance.

The British Overseas NGOs for Development (BOND) network says there is only "a minimal reference" to poverty eradication in the report prepared for the Convention's working group on external action. It has criticised the report for taking a "narrow vision" of aid.

According to BOND, the group chaired by Belgium's ex-premier Jean-Luc Dehaene views aid more as a means to allow the Union to "maximise its influence" in the world than as something it is morally obliged to provide.

To redress the balance, BOND is urging that a constitutional treaty should list poverty eradication, human rights and sustainable development as key EU objectives and that an entire chapter should be devoted to development.

Helen O'Connell, head of policy with the One World Action charity, said she was "worried that development cooperation is shrinking further out of sight". Last year, Spain's EU presidency proposed that aid should be reallocated to anti-terrorism measures, she noted, while Tony Blair's government has mooted the idea of cutting aid to states that fail to control migration.

"In this brave new world, the dynamics of trade and the war on terrorism are setting the agenda," O'Connell added.

The Convention on the future of the EU presents a threat to the European Union's efforts to alleviate poverty, a top official has warned.