European election 2009 – get started!

Source: Concord Flash, nr. 57, January 2009

30 years after the first direct election of the European Parliament by citizens, 2009 will see the European Parliament's seventh elections. They will take place from 4 to 7 June 2009. It will be the first time since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria that all 27 European Member States vote on the same week. In order to support NGOs and citizen groups at local level in raising awareness about the European elections and to engage in discussion with candidates, the EU Civil Society Contact Group, which CONCORD is part of, has issued a toolkit 2009.

The toolkit is made up of four sheets that can be downloaded separately according to your needs:
• Action sheet 1 - Why vote?
• Action sheet 2 - How to engage?
• Action sheet 3 – What do we expect from future European parliamentarians?
• Fact sheet 4 - What is the European Parliament?

The sheets are currently only published in English but they will be translated in a wide range of languages soon. Feel free to disseminate the toolkit to your constituencies, colleagues or friend and start engaging in the debate: What Europe do we want? Who should therefore represent us in the European Parliament?

The toolkit in English is also online

For further information: Ester Asín Martínez (ester.asin@concordeurope.org)

See also Euforic's newsfeeds on EU cooperation, and on Concord

Elections 2009 of the European Parliament: What European NGOs expect from the candidates

Concord press release, 26 November 2008

Months before most of the political parties, CONCORD, the European confederation of Developemnt and relief NGOs, has issued its manifesto on the European elections. In the presence of representatives from the European institutions and the civil society, it has revealed this 26 November the expectations of the European NGOs toward the candidates for the European Parliament’s elections and the main challenges for the European Union in the coming years.

In June 2009, over half billion of citizens from the 27 Member States of the European Union will elect their representatives for 2009-2014. CONCORD and its members will take action to mobilise the citizens and raise their awareness regarding the importance of development cooperation. The European Union remains the biggest donor of aid in the world and can influence the negociations at international level that are impacting on developing countries such at the Summit on Financing for Development next week in Doha. Citizens must think about this before electing a candidate.

Up to CONCORD, the 3 main objectives that the European Union should reach are: sustainable development, improvement of development aid and democratic responsibility. CONCORD urges the candidates to vote in favour of these issues once they are elected.

As explained Annamária Kekesi from the national association of Hungary and Board member of CONCORD : “ The global crisis on finance, climate and food show us that we can not wait to share our views and mobilise politicians at European and national level before and after the elections.”
Trade, agriculture, environment, migration and other policies have an impact on sustainable development. The current policies have not managed to eradicate poverty in Europe and in the world. More over, the implementation of these policies have aggravated the situation of people outside the European Union.

In order to promote a responsible Europe, CONCORD calls for a partnership between the civil society and the European Parliament that supports the right to sustainable development and accountability to citizens.

As explained Mike Mathias from the national association of Luxembourg : “we need elections that bring a change in Europe to achieve a real sustainable development with more and better aid and democratic accountability. “

For further information : Ester Asin, CONCORD policy officer : Tél: +32 (0)2 743 87 81 – easin@concordeurope.org

Click here to see the CONCORD manifesto for the European elections

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Budget 2009 – Development and foreign affairs committees of the Parliament ask more money for external relations

Source: EU News, nr. 6, September 2008

Two committees of the European Parliament, the Committee on foreign affairs (AFET) and the Committee for Development (DEVE) share the responsibility of the EU External Action budget (Heading 4). Each of them adopts amendments to the draft budget that had been adopted by the Council in July on the basis of a proposal from the Commission. In general the Parliament asks for an increase of the budget lines and also adds a few comments on the way the funds should be utilised. Here are the main requests from the two committees for the Budget 2009:

Migration and asylum: slight increase by less than 2 m€ is requested by AFET to a total of 53.1 m€.

Common Foreign and security policy: the AFET asks for a systematic reduction by 50% of all budget lines under that chapter with the argument that there is a need to improve transparency, visibility, and also accountability of actions pursued within the CFSP (particularly concerning EULEX (EU rule of law mission in Kosovo); appointment and evaluation of EU Special Representatives etc.

Human rights and democracy: AFET asks for 20 m€ increase (to a total of 130.3 m€) and adds the following comment:
- encouraging less well represented groups to gain a voice and participate in civil society and the political system, combating all forms of discrimination, and strengthening the rights of women and children and other particularly vulnerable groups, including disabled persons and older persons as well as gays, lesbians and transgender persons.

Stability Instrument – crisis response: AFET asks for 10 more m€ (total 214.8 m€) and the following comments:
- Part of the appropriation aimed at crisis response measures will be managed through a facility fund for NGO-led activities at grassroots level to prevent violent escalations.
- In 2009 the country-specific crisis response exceptional measures will take NGO proposals more into account and increase the share spent on these proposals.
European Neighbourhood and Partnership financial assistance to Palestine, the peace process and UNRWA: AFET asks for a strong increase by 286 m€ (total 447 m€) in reaction to the unjustified EC and Council’s proposals to reduce the budget compared to 2008. According to AFET, the UNRWA which is the only provider of health, education and social services assistance to people living in the Gaza strip is facing increasing financial problems when trying to alleviate the increasing poverty of the people in the Gaza strip.

Aid to Latin America and Asia: AFET wants to increase the budget for Latin America by 10 m€ (total of 364.2 m€), budget for Asia worth 517.4 m€ is maintained.
DEVE adds the following comment in budget lines for Latin America, Asia, Central Asia and South Africa:
“Where assistance is delivered via budget support, the Commission shall ensure partner countries to develop parliamentary control and audit capacities, in line with Article 25 (1) (b) of Regulation… establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation. This shall include full provision of information and the transmission of budget support agreements to parliamentary control entities and supreme audit institutions”.
And also the following comments with regard to the contribution to the Global Climate Change Alliance (which is good as the GCCA should not be funded with EDF and thematic budget line only):
– support disaster prevention and risk reduction, including climate-change-related hazards, including through contributions to support the regional implementation of the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA).

Aid to Afghanistan: AFET wants to increase it by 24m€ to a total of 184 m€ and to put more emphasis on social development:
The EU should increase its financial assistance to such areas in Afghanistan as health (construction and renovation of hospitals, prevention of children mortality) and education (construction of schools, vocational and literacy training), small and medium size infrastructure projects (reparation of roads network, embankments, etc.) as well as effectively implement job security ("cash for work") and food security ("food for work") schemes.
As well as Part of this appropriation is to be used for mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction, based on ownership and national strategies of disaster-prone countries.

Thematic budget lines:

Food Security: DEVE asks for an increase by 50 m€ (total 283.2 m€) and adds the following comment:
This instrument shall also be used to support actions aimed at responding to the crisis of soaring food prices, particularly by supporting actions
- to promote increased agricultural productivity including provision of agricultural inputs for the next agricultural cycle
- to mitigate the immediate effects of high food prices on low-income populations by support to social safety-nets and similar measures.
Another proposal from DEVE is to establish a new tiny budget line with 2m€ as a pilot project entitled Finance for agricultural production and aiming at facilitating access to small-holder farmers to financial resources which should be used to stimulate agricultural production in developing countries. These appropriations should be channelled through organisations specialised in microfinance, including local banks and associations, which conform to recognised international standards of transparency, accountability and financial probity.

DEVE’s rapporteur argues that this kind of actions does not fit into the Food security thematic programme and it is the reason why a separate project has to be established. We think however that it would be more effective to lobby for this kind of microfinance actions to be funded at a larger scale under the FS programme than to add a little budget line that will have no significant impact at field level. Something to keep in mind when reviewing the thematic programmes at mid-term (in 2010).

Non state actors: no increase of the budgets for non-state actors (184 m€) and for local authorities (32 m€) is requested. No new comment is added except a general comment that is included everywhere in the budget regarding the need include aspects of input activities and chain of results (output, outcome, impact) in evaluations of projects.

Environment and natural resources: the budget has already been increased compared to 2007 in the original Commission’s proposal to a total of 144.6 m€, the Parliament’s committee on Environment wants to add the following comment about the way to use the additional resources: The increase in funding aims to finance climate change adaptation measures, in particular measures to avoid deforestation and forest degradation.

The DEVE also asks for the pilot project on water management in developing countries to be continued with a budget of 3 m€.

Investing in people

Budget line for health: DEVE asks for an increase by 10 m€ (total 40.6 m€) and maintains the budget allocated to the Global Health Fund at 50 m€.
Gender equality: DEVE asks for an increase by 1.8 m€ (total 10 m€) with the following comment: Appropriations for 2009 for DCI countries shall be used specifically for programmes that support the participation of women as equal actors in the development of their societies and regions. With the argument that Appropriations for 2009 for this line are programmes for ENPI countries only. The increase will allow actions in DCI countries as well.

Other aspects of human and social development: DEVE asks for total of 28 m€.
Next steps in the process: Note that all these requests have now been transmitted to the Budget Committee of the Parliament that will select through a vote the amendments to be presented to the plenary session of the Parliament for the vote in first reading (end of October). The Budget committee has an arbitrary role and it may well be that not all amendments proposed by AFET and DEVE are retained.

Check Euforic's newsfeeds from CIDSE and APRODEV, and on EU cooperation,

Development aid: 2008 must really be the turning point

Source: Press release by Luis Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament, 22 May 2008

"I have many hopes in 2008 and in the commitments undertaken in order to invert the trend and to achieve the Development goals that we promised" affirmed Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament during the Plenary discussion concerning the aid effectiveness for development.

"Considering the two International conferences on development in Accra and Doha" – explained Vice President Morgantini - "2008 may and must really be the turning point: the two appointments are an extraordinary opportunity for the European Union to show that it is able to face its responsibilities as the number one world donor."

In Strasbourg, Vice President Morgantini mentioned the new annual Report by Concord, the European Confederation of Development NGOs, regarding the promises made by EU Governments. Morgantini declared that "the report shows that in 2007 the quantity of the aid by the 27 EU Member States not only didn't increase as it should have, but it actually decreased, and at the same time it shows that many problems concerning development policies remain: including insufficient transparency and tied aid".

"Therefore it's fundamental" – added the Vice President - "to increase both quantity and quality of aid. Focus on struggle against poverty, coherence of all policies with development goals, priorities identified by recipient countries, more transparency in cooperation programmes, simplified procedures, and untied aid: these are some of the reforms that require urgent notice" according to Luisa Morgantini.

Finally, the Vice President reminded that "in 2007 EU Member States spent about 8 billion Euro, 17% of all the European Aid, in important sectors but that are not development (debt cancellation, expenses for refugees, scholarships for foreign students)" and called her colleagues "to support the amendments asking for excluding these outgoings from the calculation of ODA".

After the debate in plenary, the Vice President also commented on the data concerning Italian aid. "European NGOs Report clearly shows that in 2007 our country went forward in the right direction: not only the genuine aid increased of 40% compared to 2006, but Prodi Government paid Italy's arrears due to the United Nations and it approved a timetable in order to respect the International commitments. I really wish - concluded Luisa Morgantini - that the new Government will follow this path and will not dissipate the successful work performed by former Vice Minister Patrizia Sentinelli".

For more information, see www.luisamorgantini.net

Check also Euforic's newsfeeds on European Parliament resolutions and aid effectiveness