EU to agree on using aid funds for peacekeeping

By David Cronin

Date: 06/04/06

EU governments will agree next week that EUR 300 million from money allocated to development aid should be used for peacekeeping in Africa.

Under a proposal to be approved by the Union's development ministers on Tuesday (11 April), EUR 300m would be awarded to the African Peace Facility in 2007-10. Diplomats say that the sum would be drawn down from the European Development Fund as no other source of finance can be identified at the moment.

Set up in 2004, the Peace Facility has mainly been used to support African Union-led initiatives to halt violence in Sudan's Darfur region. The EUR 250m earmarked for it so far is expected to run out shortly.

Anti-poverty activists argue that it is wrong for money reserved for development aid to be used for military purposes. "This means fewer hospitals and less investment in social services," said Florent Sebban from Eurostep, an umbrella group of relief agencies.

But a spokesman for the African Union's headquarters in Addis Ababa said: "If you don't have peace, you really can't have development. Money that is going to peace and security, to ensuring stability in countries, is also facilitating development."

The development ministers are also expected to agree guidelines aimed at boosting co-ordination of the aid programmes run by EU countries with those run by the European Commission. Ambassadors representing the Union's 25 governments are to meet today (6 April) in a bid to finalise those guidelines.

Last month, Louis Michel, the commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, recommended that the Commission and member states should engage in joint planning of their aid efforts in order to reduce duplication and bureaucracy.

Diplomats say that EU governments are divided on the merits of this proposal. The Nordic countries, in particular Denmark, have argued that Michel's plans could jeopardise initiatives to boost the harmonisation of aid activities previously agreed by many of the EU's states. France, Germany, Spain and Italy, however, are more open to Michel's suggestions.

Aides to Michel deny allegations from some EU diplomats that he is seeking new powers for the Commission. The aides argue that he is instead seeking to make good on undertakings given by the EU, at a Paris conference hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development last year, to co-ordinate aid better. "At the end of the day, we are trying to find more coherence," said one Commission official. "Otherwise, the EU will look almost ridiculous in one year's time."

The ministers are also to take stock of what progress has been made since they agreed in 2005 to double EU development aid.

A report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), published this week, complained that EUR 12.5 billion - almost one-third of reported EU development aid in 2005 - did not provide any new aid resources to poor countries. Most of the sum was used for financing debt relief and for funding refugees and foreign students in EU countries.

Eurodad says that such use of aid runs counter to commitments made at a 2002 United Nations conference, held in Monterrey, Mexico, on financing development. Governments attending that conference agreed that debt relief should be additional to development aid.

Article previews a meeting of EU Development Ministers at the General Affairs and External Relations Council, 10-11 April 2006. They were expected to award €300m to the African Peace Facility in 2007-10, in a move that would accept that money allocated to development aid could be used for peacekeeping in Africa. Ministers were also expected to agree on guidelines aimed at boosting co-ordination of the aid programmes run by EU countries with those run by the European Commission.

Eurodad: Joint European NGO Briefing: EU aid: Genuine leadership or misleading figures? An independent analysis of European aid figures, 3.4.06 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-6NZJDJ/$file/EU%20Aid.pdf?openelement

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