By Peggy Corlin - 29th August 2006
Brussels has called for greater responsibility from third country governments in exchange for increasing EU development funding.
The new strategy, unveiled on Wednesday, is intended to establish a set of common principles for countries benefiting from EU aid.The hope is that the new criteria will help boost reforms in developing countries and give the EU tighter control over the way its money is spent.
“Development, poverty reduction, stability and security all depend on states being able to perform the essential public functions,” said EU development commissioner Louis Michel.
These include “providing access to health, education and justice, observing fundamental rights and freedoms and managing economic and natural resources in a transparent and responsible fashion”, he added.
“Our harmonisation efforts will focus on analysis and diagnostic tools to assess governance levels, as well as response strategies including weak states or states where conflict is coming to an end.”
But the commissioner made it clear that the new criteria of governance would not amount to a ‘blacklist’ of countries which would be denied development aid.
“Our goal is not to humiliate our partners, that’s why we want political dialogue to prevail as well as local ownership rather than conditionality and sanctions,” Michel said.
“It is about convincing, not about constraining.”
In order to reward countries making tangible efforts to improve governance, the commission has announced an incentive fund of €2.7bn, in addition to its usual development funding.
The new strategy will also apply to countries receiving EU funding under the terms of the neighourhood policy, such as Jordan and Morocco.
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