Newsletter – n°10 – April 2012

Headlines

The volume of official development assistance of the European Union came to 53 billion euro in 2011, a fall of 800 million euro as compared to 2010. With 0.42% of the Gross National Income (GNI) dedicated to development assistance, the 27 EU Member States are still far from the 0.7% objective they had set for 2015. But this is an average figure, and the achievements of some Member States can be noted. If Greece, Spain, Austria and Belgium cut their expenditure due to the recession, Germany, Sweden and Italy increased their development assistance budget and four EU Member States are already allocating 0.7% of their GNI to development assistance, while the United Kingdom expects to reach this objective in 2013.

The discussions now in process at the Council on the Commission proposals concerning external assistance for 2014-2020 should put these results into perspective. The proposals were subject to a first tour de table on 26^th March in the General Affairs Council. Only one Member State – Romania – called for a cut in the Union’s external action budget. As far as geographical and thematic priorities are concerned, Spain expressed concerns related to the fact that the EU is considering halting its bilateral cooperation with 11 Latin American countries, Portugal stated that the less developed countries were its top priority and the Netherlands communicated their intention of making human rights the center of their action. The Member States only had a few minutes to share their positions, there were no substantial discussions. On the basis of the work made by COREPER in May, more detailed discussions will be held in the Council in June. Once the members of the Council will have agreed on the proposal pack, negotiations with the European Parliament can start. It is highly likely that such negotiations will last until the summer of 2013.