EU cash for AIDS fight dubbed ‘modest’

Date: 19/06/03

By David Cronin

A DRAFT EU plan to devote €846 million to the fight against AIDS has been dubbed "extremely ambiguous" by an international expert on the disease.

Stephen Lewis, the UN's special representative on AIDS in Africa, voiced disappointment that a reference to the AIDS pandemic appears only on page 20 of the 23-page "annotated agenda" for this weekend's Thessaloniki summit (20-21 June).

The reference does not specify where the money will come from or whether it will be additional to existing development aid commitments made by the Union or its member states.

Insiders said this week that Germany - the biggest net contributor to the EU budget - is particularly reluctant to significantly boost the amount of cash for the fight against AIDS.

Visiting Brussels this week for talks with Koos Richelle, head of the European Commission's development directorate, diplomats and MEPs, Lewis said the EU's financing for anti-AIDS efforts has so far been "terribly modest in the scheme of things".

"In Africa, children spend as much time going to funerals as they spend going to school," the Canadian remarked.

"We have lost five million lives in the last two years [due to AIDS in Africa]. There are 3.5 million new infections every year.

"I can't visit these countries without wondering if the world has gone mad. Developed countries have to stop this modest financial embroidery and makea quantum leap in contributions."

Lewis, who has held his current post for the past two years, contended the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is the "best hope we have".

About €4 billion has been pledged to the fund from various donors for the period lasting to 2008.

Yet the fund estimates it will need an additional €4 billion in promised funding by the end of 2004 to provide finance for the next series of projects in the pipeline.

To date, ten EU states have undertaken to provide a combined total of nearly €1.7 billion to the fund, while the European Commission has pledged €460 million.

But Lewis argued that about $3 billion (€2.5 billion) per year would be a more appropriate contribution for the EU (channelled both through the Fund and other anti-AIDS schemes) if it is to make a serious difference to saving lives.

In an apparent rapprochement following their split on Iraq, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac wrote to their fellow EU leaders on 14 June urging them to emulate a recent US announcement that it will provide $1 billion per annum to the fund. The British premier and French president want the Union to make a similar offer at Thessaloniki.

Campaigners argue it is necessary for the EU and other rich parts of the world to provide the same quantities of money as Washington - given the latter's offer is conditional on other donors providing at least two-thirds of the fund's overall contributions.

Stephen Lewis, the UN's special representative on AIDS in Africa, has criticsed the EU's plan to fight AIDS as 'extremely ambiguous'.