Call for increased funding in democracy programmes

Date: 21/11/1996

IN THE Maastricht Treaty and in its relations with former Communist countries, the EU has declared that one of its raisons d'être is to promote democracy.

But it is not putting its money where its mouth is, according to the European Parliament.

Of the 1-billion-ecu budget for Phare aid programmes in central and eastern Europe, only 11 million ecu is intended to fund democracy programmes. Similarly, only 11 million ecu of the 520-million-ecu Tacis budget has been earmarked for such programmes for the new nations of the former Soviet Union.

Next week, British Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott will meet European Commission Deputy Director -General François Lamoureux to press for an increase in funding for the democracy programmes.

“We are underfunded,” said McMillan-Scott. “We should be doing far more to encourage the process of pluralism. Obviously the EU budget is under pressure, but it is a question of priority.”

Some of the Union's huge budget for technical assistance should be transferred to the democracy programme, said McMillan-Scott, architect of the EU budget line, the 'European initiative for democracy and human rights'.

Pointing out that US spending on democracy programmes is five or six times higher than that of the Union, McMillan-Scott says the Parliament will next month table amendments to the 1997 EU budget. “What we need in the Commission is a higher priority attached to this and less to things like running a flour mill,” he said.

EU officials say only one in seven projects can be financed with current democracy programme funding levels. That compares with one in two of the projects run by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) submitted to the Directorate-General for overseas development (DGVIII) for Commission co-financing.

While not all project requests received by the Commission are worthy of funding, officials say they would like to be able to approve about one in three bids. The low approval rate also frustrates NGOs who go to considerable effort and expense to draft offers.

“We should be able to look at countries and say, 'How can we help them to establish democratic practices?'. We are not doing that at all,” said an EU official.

For instance, support for the rule of law is a key Union priority. But Phare and Tacis funds for helping new democracies install legal structures, train lawyers and judges, and draft new legislation are in short supply.

When Uzbekistan accepted the Union's idea of support for a court of appeal, Tacis democracy funds fitted the bill. But other countries will not be given the same aid. “Uzbekistan was a particular priority, but we would have like to have done the same for a number of countries,” said an EU official.

Efforts to assist independent trade unions, free media and parliamentary organisations are also under-funded, and when democracy programme funds are used to support emergency initiatives - such as 1993 elections in Russia, when half a million ecu was taken from the democracy budget - other projects suffer.

While the Commission has increased the Tacis staff, there is still a shortage of staff to cope with the huge demand.

Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek announced last week that 50 projects would receive money under the 1996 democracy programmes. Those project bids were submitted by non-governmental organisations in April, approved by the European Parliament in July, and languished in the Commission until last month, when it notified the NGOs of their acceptance.

Yet the democracy programme budgets are likely to stay the same size next year, say EU officials. “The Commission is not asking for more,” says McMillan-Scott, who believes Van Den Broek is personally committed to the democracy projects but says that outside the Commission's human rights unit, there is not yet a general appreciation of the great need for more funding.