As leaders meet in Brussels today (Thursday 17 June) to discuss the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) development agencies say that the European Union must step up and score a goal against poverty.

Only an ambitious, financed action plan will put the EU back on track to meeting its international commitments and strengthen global efforts to reach the poverty goals.

Activists staging an MDGs football action warned that the EU cannot afford to go empty-handed to the United Nations’ MDG summit in September in New York. With only 5 years remaining, Member States must stop blocking progress towards the MDGs and show that they are willing to step forward and score the goals that they agreed back in 2000.

EU ministers met on Monday and re-stated their commitment to provide 0.7% of national income as aid by 2015 – a target which dates back to the 1970s. Their aid target for 2010 will be missed and they have failed to put a comprehensive MDGs action plan into play. Without urgent action today from EU leaders, Europe will go to New York this September with nothing more than broken promises.

“Too many EU Member States are shooting wide of the mark and blocking global efforts to score the Millennium Development Goals”, said Olivier Consolo, Director of CONCORD. “At today’s meeting EU leaders must show how they will meet their commitments and score the goals needed to eradicate poverty”.

EU leaders have spent over €1 trillion bailing out the banks – an amount greater than the total of development aid given by the same countries since 1960. Rather than using the financial crisis as an excuse to slash aid budgets, EU leaders must seize the opportunities arising from it. Innovative policies, such as a tax on financial transactions, can contribute to the stability of financial markets while generating extra money for fighting global poverty, at no cost for the tax payer.

How can EU leaders score the Millennium Development Goals?

• More aid: to reach the 0.7% target by 2015, EU leaders must commit to legally-binding yearly timetables.
• Better aid: to make aid effective, EU leaders must ensure that aid is managed and directed by developing country institutions under close scrutiny from their citizens.
• Beyond aid: use new ways to generate money for development such as a tax on financial transactions which could mobilise up to €1 trillion every year and commit to tackle tax havens which deprive developing countries of huge amounts of money.
• Stop EU policies from doing harm to developing countries: one of the obligations of the Lisbon Treaty is that Europe’s policies should be coherent with its development objectives. The EU must take this seriously and use it to help achieve the MDGs. Ignoring these policies could reverse progress on poverty eradication.

 

Related Articles:

• Activista putting the pressure on for the Millenium Development Goals: Hunger hourglass greets EU Foreign Ministers

 

Notes:

1. In 2000, 189 world leaders adopted the MDGs, the first truly global effort to eradicate poverty. Five years to the 2015 deadline and despite some progress, many of these important goals, such health, education and food, are in danger of being missed.

2. CONCORD, the European Confederation of Development NGOs, last week launched its annual AidWatch report detailing the aid performance of each EU member state: Penalty against Poverty: More and Better EU aid can score Millennium Development Goals (pdf). EU aid is €19bn short of what was promised to developing countries by 2010 to help them meet the MDGs – more than half the estimated extra €32bn required per year globally to meet the hunger goal alone, says the report.

3. Schulmeister, S. (2009) A General Financial Transaction Tax: A Short Cut of the Pros, the Cons and a Proposal (pdf).
WIFO, Wien