Select Committee on International Development Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-46)

MR PATRICK CHILD AND MR KOOS RICHELLE

6 DECEMBER 2005

Q40 Ann McKechin: Just with regard to the new Member States, many of whom have had very little experience in ODA, how is the role of your department in encouraging them to pursue their own bilateral aid or how far are you trying to encourage them to initially focus their budgets through the EU funds?

  Mr Child: Your starting point is exactly right. Until extremely recently, many of the new Member States have been on the other side of this equation and only now are coming to these issues. I led the discussion earlier in the year in the run-up to the UN meeting and we have encouraged all Member States to sign up to pretty ambitious targets for their own assistance, of course with a degree of realism and discrimination between those who are already in and new Member States. We have not set any prescriptions in terms of whether that should be money that they spend through a national programme or their contributions to the EU budget except that, of course, the contribution keys to the EU budget are fixed and known, so each Member State contributes X% according to the formula that works for that. To the extent that the implied targets for one or other Member State go beyond that, they have a choice whether to do that through a bilateral programme or other multilateral donors or whatever. What is most important is that the EU collectively has made a world leading commitment to step up assistance, development assistance in particular, to the poorest countries and all Member States are signed up to playing their part in that, taking account of the different starting points from which they come.

Q41 Ann McKechin: I take it the EU will be considering it, will be assisting these new countries in terms of trying to develop that capacity of those who look as though they are starting from scratch. It would seem obvious if you have got the experience to try and share that knowledge.

  Mr Richelle: We try what we can, but by law we are forbidden to spend money in the European Union. We had the strange situation where the Canadians had to come in as a donor to support new Member States. We could not do that, and a lot of Member States cannot do that because by law they cannot give money to institutions in the European Union. We had a roadshow some time ago to convince them that they should not bring to life their own institutions, they should find a donor of their choice in the European Union—it does not need to be the Commission—through whom they can work. They did not like that. They said, "Come on, friends, you used Development Co-operation for 40 years to promote your own enterprises in tied aid but now you have seen the light suddenly, okay you untie among yourself and work together but we want to build our own constituency. We are using the same argument that you used 50 years ago to get Development Co-operation going". They are all starting their own agencies; we have the Czech agency, the Hungarian agency and so on. The smaller ones had hopes that we would have this European external service because they were attracted by the idea that they could have one attaché or something like that with a million attached to a number of delegations of the Commission or embassies of the Member States but that has been put on hold for some time. They are all developing themselves but, unfortunately for them, we have just reached agreement in Europe that we will totally untie Community aid as from 1 January 2006. That was accepted by the Council 10 days ago.

Q42 Mr Davies: Can I just say, first of all, coming back to the points put to you by my colleague, Hugh, I do not think you need to apologise for spending money under different external assistance programmes either for the near-abroad or for candidates for the EU. These are just different policies. I do not think that is at all inconsistent with having a poverty reduction orientated agenda in your development spending, the EDF and so forth, and I welcome that. The paper of 22 November[15] is very clear on that matter. We have other policies as well in the European Union, as we do in our own states. It is not as if the only thing in the world is development and poverty reduction. We have environmental policies, we have European transport network policies and we have policies of helping to build stability among our near-neighbours. In my view, we would be absolutely crazy to spend our money and to put the lives of our troops at risk by having EU forces in Kosovo and Bosnia and not to recognise the need to spend some money by way of aid in those areas as well, not necessarily purely on poverty reduction but helping people to build a police force or set up a central bank, or whatever it takes to create stability. Those are areas which the Member States cannot do these things at all. We could not do it because DFID is statutorily barred from spending money on that sort of thing and, anyway, we have got no structure in those countries to monitor the programmes, so we would be barmy to try and get into that business on a national basis. What I would say is thank God you are doing it and I think you are quite right. I think it is a quite separate policy area. Part of the confusion may arise from your organisational structure and that is what I want to raise with you. Koos was saying that you had achieved institutional stability, or perhaps Mr Child was saying that, and that is what I want to challenge. It would be impertinent of me to say I think you have got the structure wrong but it is right for us to probe it as it is our job as parliamentarians. At first sight, as the French would say, it is not obvious. Koos, you have an operation which, as far as I can see, is extremely successful and doing very well, is greatly improved and is improving all the time. You report to one Commissioner, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner. Then the policy work is done by Bernard Petit, who impressed us all very favourably as well, and he reports to another Commissioner, Louis Michel. Is it sensible to have policy and delivery under separate Commissioners? I would have thought that was pretty problematic. What you then have under Mrs Ferrero-Waldner are these other areas, which are different areas of external assistance, albeit they are external assistance of a kind. That does not seem to me to make much sense. Surely it would be much more sensible to have the External Affairs Commissioner with perhaps two Directorates-General, one on the development, the actual poverty reduction business, and the other on other aspects of external affairs, including disbursing money to foreign governments or in foreign countries for other political or general reasons. That would be an alternative structure. I just want to probe a bit the rationale of the structure you have presently got and whether it really makes optimum sense.

  

Mr Child: I said that we had achieved a degree of stability and that was a welcome change from the sometimes rather agitated discussions on these matters in the past. I think that it would be dishonest of me to suggest if I was asked to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and design the ideal administrative set-up for the European Commission, given its various challenges and in the institutional set-up that we find ourselves, that I would end up with the system that we have at the moment. We have a certain number of Commissioners and we have a certain number of Commissioners' portfolios, therefore, to share out. I think the description that you gave of the respective roles of Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and Mr Michel in relation to the work of EuropeAid is perhaps a little bit simplified. In fact, when it comes to the implementation of the programmes that are under the responsibility of DG Development at the conceptual level, Mr Michel, you can be sure, takes a very close interest in the work of EuropeAid in their execution, and rightly so, because he has taken the political responsibility for launching a certain number of programmes and it is right that he should also have the necessary levers and contacts with the departments that are implementing those decisions. The relationship between Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and Mr Michel on overseeing that work is extremely harmonious and successful. We have had no difficulties from that point of view. The situation that we find ourselves in in relation to the Constitutional Treaty perhaps also explains a bit why we are where we are today in the sense that when President Barroso arrived in the Commission he took a decision to preserve the structure of the various departments in the external relations field more or less unchanged in relation to what was under the previous system because there was then an expectation that in a relatively short time there would be some further changes of quite a significant nature with the entry into force of the Constitutional Treaty, the creation of a new External Action Service and the arrival in the Commission of the double-hatted Foreign Minister/High Representative/Commissioner for External Relations, and this would be quite a big upheaval and an opportunity for a really significant institutional change. Of course, we are no longer working on that timetable so we have to make the best of the system that we have. I think it is working in a harmonious and reasonably functional way. The decision that the previous Commission took at the moment of the creation of EuropeAid with the reforms of the year 2000 when there was a separation between, on the one hand, the policy departments that were doing the programming and the planning and the interface with the political level and, on the other hand, the responsibilities of EuropeAid for the full implementation cycle projects, although difficult when it was bedding down is now working pretty well. It is working particularly well, I should say, in relation between DG Relex and EuropeAid. There may be some issues in relation to DG Development given its geographical separation because until recently they were working in a building a long way away and it was more difficult for the sort of day-to-day contacts which were necessary to make a success of that. In general, I think the system works in a fairly settled and stable way even though I accept the starting point of your question that other models are certainly conceivable.

  Chairman: Just for clarification, I was not suggesting that the EU's foreign policy interests and, indeed, development interests in the near-abroad are not relevant, I think it is a question of the extent to which foreign policy and development work together or sometimes compromise. That was the point I was exploring.

Q43 Mr Singh: Those were exactly some of the issues that I wanted to explore. During the previous discussion I got some idea of the thinking behind the EU near-neighbourhood policy and I have got a number of questions on that. A cynic might look at the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan and look at Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Egypt and wonder whether that is quite an extension of the concept of "neighbourhood" and, in fact, the imperative behind the European Neighbourhood Policy is much more political in terms of enhancing the role of the EU on the world stage rather than anything to do with the eradication of poverty or aid in that direct sense. There is that issue. One could look at the European neighbourhood instrument, for example, as siphoning off development monies from the poorest countries, but I am also puzzled because we have the neighbourhood instrument which could be doing that and then there is a proposal for the Development Co-operation and Economic Co-operation instrument which looks like another channel to be taking development aid from the poorest countries. What is the difference between that instrument and the neighbourhood instrument? Is there any truth in what some cynics would say, that what the ENP[16] is doing is creating buffer zones outside the EU fortress maybe to absorb migratory labour from poorer countries and that is the real justification for the ENP rather than having it wrapped up in concern for poorer countries?

  

Mr Child: Thank you for that question and the opportunity to agree with what Quentin Davies said about having different policy objectives. The straight answer to your question is that the neighbourhood policy is primarily about the European Union responding to the geopolitical challenges in its immediate neighbourhood and doing that in a way which combines financial assistance, including a commitment within that to promoting government objectives, but financial assistance, with a range of other policies which are covered by our Action Plans, to bring those countries closer to the European Union without talking at this moment about any membership perspective but using a bit for the techniques of membership in terms of setting benchmarks and helping the countries with a transition towards market economy principles and democratic principles on which the EU is based, precisely to promote stability and security in our neighbourhood. If you look at the way the world is going and the transatlantic relationship, more and more the European Union is expecting, and is expected, to assume in particular a fuller contribution to the stability and security in our continent. It is through the neighbourhood policy and the enlargement process in those countries that are concerned by that, that we do that. I think it would be wrong to say that the neighbourhood instrument is first and foremost about development. That is not to say that in the Development Co-operation and Economic Co-operation instrument you mentioned under the new legal architecture that we have proposed that is the primary vehicle for us to promote development policy in the countries that are covered by that instrument. As you know, we initially proposed that should include the European Development Fund. Some Member States had hesitations about bringing the European Development Fund within the Community budget, and I personally regret that. We will see where we go on those discussions. The Commission stands by its proposal in that respect. That helps to situate a bit what we are trying to achieve with the neighbourhood policy.

Q44 Mr Singh: I have problems with the ethics of it in that we can shout to the world that the EU disburses so many billions in overseas aid but the ethical question is it would not be right for a group of nations, or a nation, not to look at its neighbours and see what is happening and if it can help, but is it ethically right to use aid budgets rather than have a specific foreign relations budget to achieve those objectives?

  Mr Child: It is a bit with the interest of making that distinction slightly clearer and more honest that we have proposed what we have in the Financial Perspectives. We have made a clearer distinction between, on the one hand, the European neighbourhood and the stability instrument, that is the other instrument that we have proposed with a view to responding to some of the more political challenges that are out there, and put that in a separate category from the Development Co-operation and Economic Co-operation instrument which is a more clearly focused development instrument. At the same time you would not want me to say that we should not be using the neighbourhood instrument to respond to development needs in the countries covered by that instrument where those exist, and indeed we will continue to do that. I do not feel comfortable with the concept of siphoning money away from pure and noble and ethical development aims. We have different policies, we have different aims and we have different budgets for them. I hope that the greater clarity and the simpler legal environment that we will have in the new Financial Perspectives will make that clearer still.

  Chairman: We have only got five minutes, I think, for a couple of quick, specific questions from two colleagues.

Q45 John Barrett: I would like to go slightly further afield to the EU's role in Darfur in Sudan. The EU has been a major supporter of the African Union (AU) mission in Sudan. What is the state of play on the replenishment of the African Peace Facility? What is the longer term future in relation to that? A number of Members of the Committee were out in Darfur and we saw the good work the AU was doing and while hopes are resting on that, obviously funding is key.

  Mr Child: I can be brief on that because it is more the responsibility of Commissioner Michel. Certainly we have been very committed to the success of the Peace Facility, which we think has worked well. There is a discussion going on with Member States about renewing the funding. It is a bit tied up with the question of what is the architecture of the Financial Perspectives. There is also the discussion about how you classify funding of this type in relation to the DAC criteria. We are determined to continue with the sort of instrument that the Peace Facility has offered us and we are eager to rally the support of Member States to that.

Q46 Joan Ruddock: I want to take you to another country altogether and one that has actually fallen off the political agenda to a degree, and that is Afghanistan. In a certain way, security interests and development interests coincide in that country and the EU has been spending a lot of money. I wonder if you think that the EU has got value for money and whether you think the Afghans have got value for money. There are huge governance issues in Afghanistan, I believe. When you spoke earlier about getting greater co-ordination between Member States and the EU in spending each other's money in different countries, is this something that is being pursued in respect of Afghanistan? Is there going to be greater policy coherence there and better co-ordination of projects between the EU and Member States?

  Mr Child: I think that Afghanistan is an excellent case study of many of the challenges that we face in EU external relations. It is a particularly timely moment as we think about what happens after Bonn to be thinking about that. At a positive level, I think the co-operation between the EU's delegation in the spending that we have, which has been very considerable and is a good example of where we have made a very significant pledge and delivered on it, and the Council's Special Representative has been exemplary. The two have worked in a very complementary and co-operative fashion. It is an example which I wish was as successful all over the place. That is a good thing. As is often the case in post-crisis environments, however, there are many different actors and a very complicated set-up. In particular, there is a debate about the role of NATO and its relationship with the EU institutions, and in particular the Community dimension of that, which does not make our life any easier. I strongly agree with the principle that it would be great if we were getting more recognition as the European Union for all that we are doing as the Union. Part of that is a question of sheer geopolitical weight and military resources, and people who arrive in places on battleships tend to get more photographs in the newspapers than people who arrive afterwards with helicopters of humanitarian assistance, and even less the people who arrive with very worthy and slightly longer term drug rehabilitation programmes and other things. That is the reality that I do not see changing in a radical sense in the way the European Union engages with the rest of the world any time soon. Certainly one of the frustrations—I come back to where we started, which is good—on the concept paper is how do we create the sort of coherent focus on what the EU is trying to achieve collectively so that both our systems realise more what we are doing, and the wider world. The wider world is also crying out for the European Union not only to be playing the role of which it is capable but also to be seen to be doing that. I agree with your question and I hope that the moment we have the renewal of the Bonn situation, as we discussed, this will help us to make progress. One of the things that we need to do is to convince Member States that when we are talking about EU co-ordination it is a two-way process, it is not just a question of the Member States coming together and asking the Commission and others from the centre what we are doing with EU money, it is also being able to come along and present as part of an overall picture without distracting from the national contribution what the EU is doing. We have had considerable difficulties, for example, in our aid to the Palestinians in just getting the raw information about what individual Member States are doing and keeping that up to date and presenting it in a way which is comparable. That is something that is an extra challenge which we face which, for example, the Americans do not have. They know what their figures are because they have them all managed in a single pot. Again, this comes back to the question of coherence which, as I say, is very important.

  Chairman: I know that Richard Burden would have liked to have come in on that but we are running up against time constraints. Thank you very much. You have given us some reassurance that there is that coherence between foreign policy and development policy. I think the issue is transparency, that if there are changes they are declared and debated rather than just happen after the event. Thank you.





15   The European Consensus, Joint Statement by the Council and the representatives of the Governments of the Member States meeting within the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission on European Union Development Policy, 14820/05, Brussels, 22 November 2005 Back

16   European Neighbourhood Policy Back


 
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