Concord Danmark was in brussels the 17. of June as five NGO’s coordinated an event in Parc du Cinquantenaire.

The five NGFO’s CIDSE, ActionAid, 11.11.11, Oxfam and CONCORD coordinated an event in rekation to the EU Summit in Brussels the 17-18. of June. The event put focus on the importance of reaching the UN Millenium Development Goal.

Several EU countries are decreasing their amount of development aid which makes the realisation of the MDG’s even harder to accomplish.

You can watch the video here and read our article about the event here.

1600 NGO’s were represented in Brussels the 17th of June to call for the attention of the EU leaders and demand action for reaching the Millennium Development Goals to fight poverty.

Score to end poverty
One soccer goal. 27 soccer players. One ball. Representatives from 1600 NGOs were dressed up like EU leaders, all wearing soccer clothing. The EU leaders of states were taking turns target practicing at the goal with performances mirroring their state’s effort to reach the Millennium Development Goals, the MDG’s. But the goal was no near being scored at every aim since the EU countries are breaking their promises of development aid to the developing countries and collectively owe 141 billion in development aid – an amount corresponding to the 12 poorest African countries’ aggregated annual income.

More than one billion people live under the UN poverty line and the EU member states must lead the field if the battle against poverty is to be won. At the sideline the coaching team Catherine Ashton and José Manuel Barroso is watching over the players and coach the state leaders through the match in the fight to reach the MDG’s. But the coaching job is complicated. The lack of political will to move from words to deeds and send the ball in the right corner of the goal result in a dull match with too much discussion and way too few results.

The event is a strong call to the EU state leaders who, only a few hundred meters from the field, are attending the EU summit 17-18 June where the EU contribution to reach the MDG’s are just discussed. Only a few of the EU counties are keeping their promises to the developing countries which is illustrated throughout the match at the green field of Parc du Cinquantenaires by i.e. Sweden confidently sending the ball in the right corner and thereby consolidates the country’s contribution to the realization of the MDG’s.

The play of Denmark is of a total other character as the Danish player dressed up as Lars Løkke Rasmussen fatally shoots the ball to the straight left, far from reaching the goal. Denmark does pay the development aid that the developing countries have been promised, but the slogan “don’t cut the aid” sounding from the spectators puts focus on the double breach of promises that Denmark has committed: Denmark will cut the aid by 2,3 billion until 2013 and is not paying the additional finances to meet the climate changes in the developing countries. Instead, Denmark is taking the money from the developing aid.

The slogans “score to end poverty” and “we are watching you, you know what to do” emphasise the fact that there are only five years left to reach the MDG’s and that the EU with political will can change its miserable goal score and help to ensure the realization of the MDGs.

If the EU wishes to keep its credibility intact towards the world society and keep its promises to the developing countries, it is strictly necessary that coach team Ashton and Barroso together with the EU state leaders make sure to find a common ground at the EU summit and bring forth ambitious action plans so that the EU will move from being a losing team to the Premier League.

Contact
Stine Piilgaard P. Nielsen
Communication officer
Concord Danmark
sn@concorddanmark.dk
Phone: +45 60 14 00 86

Event coordinators
Oxfam
CONCORD
ActionAid
11.11.11
CIDSE

CONCORD’s headquarter is in Brussels and the organisation represents 1600 European NGO and safeguard their interests at an EU level. The 10 of June CONCORD launched the AidWatch-report Penalty against Poverty: More and better EU aid can score Millennium Development Goals. The report is published every year and evaluates the development aid from the member states to the developing countries.

Concord Danmark is the Danish platform of CONCORD and represents 27 Danish organizations working with development affairs. Concord Danmark has contributed to the AidWatch-report with the chapter on Danish development aid. The report can be downloaded at www.concorddanmark.dk

DanWatch and Concord Danmark release a new report on the gold industry in Ghana and how multinational mining companies extract Africa’s natural resources, without the local population benefitting from it. The mining companies move their profits out of Africa taking advantage of loopholes in EU accounting regulation and European tax havens. The EU has committed to ensure that its various policies are coherent with development goals. However the case of Ghana reveals that there is still a crucial gap between intentions and reality.

Ghana is Africa’s second largest supplier of gold, but the country is still one of the least developed countries due to multinational companies that benefit from Ghana’s tax rules and harvest the profit. This results in Ghana missing out on huge tax revenues each year that could help lift the country out of poverty.

The Lisbon Treaty Article 208 states that the objective of the EU’s development policy is to eradicate poverty and that the EU should take account of this objective in all policy areas. The report recommends the EU to implement a “country-by-country” reporting and to make it possible to sanction against tax havens and their users in order to combat illegal capital flows.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Concord Danmark has launched the first citizen’s initiative under the Lisbon treaty under the heading “Keep your promises to the poor!” The goal is to collect 1 million signatures from citizens in the EU and thereby put pressure on the EU leaders who are not keeping their promises in terms of development aid for the world’s poor. This attention is needed to ensure a breakthrough in the fight against poverty.

Sign here.

Concord Denmark’s petition has received positive responses from several of the contributors. You can read some of the quotes from the website below and download more here..

Thank you for your request regarding your citizen initiative to the European Commission. I think it’s good to see one of the new opportunities created by the Lisbon Treaty is being used to establish a dialogue between citizens and EU institutions.
Thor Pedersen (President of the Danish Parliament)

If Europe can afford saving banks, it can afford saving lives!
Agnès Philippart (Policy and Communication officer, Concord Europe)

Thanks for the mail – good initiative, I have just signed.
Emilie Turunen (Member of the European Parliament, SF)

Thank you for taking the time to contact the office of Mr. Jim Higgins MEP. It is an issue of vital importance and a key policy issue for Mr. Higgins. Mr. Higgins has signed the online petition and is encouraging others to do so too through his Facebook page. Mr. Higgins would like to wish you every success in your worthy campaign.
Niamh O’Keeffe, (Intern of Jim Higgins, Member of the European Parliament, EPP-ED)

The petition has already received positive response and publicity around the world through private blogs and Concord Denmark’s partners. Below you can click on some of the pages to view the coverage.

Newsletter of Britta Thomsen, MEP (S)

Newsletter of Concord Europe Se under 26. februar 2010.

Newsletter of Sylvie Guillaumes, S&D)

Platforma Portuguesa

Mission Afrika

TakingITGlobal – virtuelt, globalt diskussionsforum.

The Hungarian NGO phe.

Malta’s NGO-platform

Liberal democrats’ blog

TRIALOG

Wednesday 21 April the European Commission launched the so-called Spring Package which is the EU’s action plan for development.

The package consists of 12 points which are promoting the Millenium Development Goals and calls on the Commission EU member states to increase their aid to developing countries and further cooperation in order to reach a common position at the UN Summit in September 2010.

The 12 points of the Spring Package are:

• Increased aid assistance
• Effective aid assistance
• Geographically targeted assistance
• Sector oriented assistance
• Ownership of the developing countries compared to 2015 targets through better partnerships
• Policy coherence
• Taxation
• Regional cooperation
• Innovative sources of financing
• Focus on EU funds for climate change
• New plan for intervention in conflict situations
• Supporting developing countries to gain greater influence in international organizations, the World Bank, IMF and UN

The EU action plan and the related documents will be discussed in the EU’s Foreign Council in May and June this year.

You can read the Spring package and the documents here.

The publication 14 April of the new OECD figures show that EU countries do not meet the goals as they had committed to do. The news is another setback for the 2015 Millenium Development Goals that are to be evaluated in New York in September.

Germany and Italy, two major European economies, has cut aid to respectively 0.35% and 0.16% of GDP and thus cuts a big chunk of the total EU support. Several other EU countries, including Austria, Ireland and Portugal have also reduced their support in 2009, which means that the DAC countries’ total development contribution falls by 0.2%.

Financial Crisis is a poor excuse for lack of political will

British and Belgian Governments have shown leadership by increasing assistance in accordance with their promises, while many countries are still blaming the financial crisis on their cuts. That gives the impression that it is more a question of lack of political will than lack of resources. Despite the financial crisis, Britain and Belgium increased their support to respectively 0.52% and 0.55% of GNP. Denmark is in fourth position with 0.88% of GNP in 2009, outpaced only by Sweden (1.12%), Norway (1.06%) and Luxembourg (1.01%).

EU’s role in the 2015 Millenium Development Goals

This year it is ten years ago the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015 were adopted. 2015 goals consist of eight points that puts emphasis on the eradication of all hunger, all children must have access to schooling, and there must be equality between the sexes. It is the most ambitious goals for global poverty reduction ever.

The EU accounts for about 60% of world development and has vowed to lead the fight to achieve them. Therefore, the 15 richest EU countries pledged to provide 0.7% of their GNI in development assistance in 2015, while the 12 least prosperous countries that do not have the same tradition of development aid, pledged to give 0.33%.

The EU can and must act – concrete proposals

At the EU summit on 17 and 18 June in Brussels EU leaders meet to agree on EU’s position at the UN summit in September, where the 2015 targets are to be evaluated. Therefore Concord Denmark proposes three concrete actions: Firstly, all EU countries are to confirm the objectives for 2015 at the meeting. Secondly, there needs to be concrete action plans for how the objectives are realized. Thirdly, the creation of annual monitoring mechanisms to ensure that action plans are met should be initiated.

With clear objectives, action plans and follow-up, we ensure that fine words do not become empty words.

The European Commission has presented its work program for 2010. The focus is on closer co-operation at EU level to get the EU out of the financial crisis and into a period of growth.

The financial crisis and unity among the EU Member States are the key words in the work program which the Commission has submitted for 2010. Four strands are laid down to get the EU out of the crisis and to initiate growth. The Commission particularly stresses the importance of ensuring economic sustainability, involvement of EU citizens, the development of programs to address global issues as well as upgrading the EU’s instruments and workflows.

After the Lisbon Treaty has entered in force and the new Commission has been established, the Commission is now able to meet the challenges facing the EU. “It’s a matter of political will” it is stated in the Commission’s papers.

The Commission will co-operate closely with the European Parliament and the Council in order to realize its work program of work which will be reviewed each year.

You can read details about the work program her.

In the struggle to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the Commission presents two strategic communications on food supply security and global health

The communication on global health states:

“Everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right two benefit from medical treatment.” It stressed that it is unacceptable that one billion people go to sleep hungry, and that the Millennium Development Goals can’t be reached through aid alone. The EU should assist developing countries through a more structured effort and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs thereby again underlines that the EU should keep the promise stated in the Lisbon Treaty – that no EU policy may undermine the aim of poverty reduction.

The strategy includes the following

• Helping smallholder farmers, and especially women.
• Increasing demand-led agricultural research, extension and innovation by 50 pct. by 2015.
• Promoting better integration of nutrition in development policies, including in education and health and related capacity building.
• Contributing with almost three billion euro in 2010-2012 within the initiative on global food security agreed at the G8 summit of world leaders in Aquila in 2009.

The two communications “The European Role in Global Health” and “An EU policy framework two assist developing countries in addressing food security challenges” will be discussed by the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers on 11 May.

See the communications here..

The Commission has proposed the concretization of the European citizens’ initiative

The Lisbon Treaty provides a new opportunity that one million EU citizens can request the European Commission to submit proposals for a Union regulation. European Commission proposes for instance that the Lisbon Treaty formulation of “an appropriate number of countries” must mean at least a third of EU member states. It is also proposed that the minimum number of signatures from each member country equivalent to 750 times the number of members in Parliament – for Denmark, 750 times 13, representing 9,750 signatures. The organizers have one year to collect the necessary signatures.

The citizens’ initiative may not be used where the EU has no jurisdiction and therefore the European Commission after receipt of 300,000 signatures check whether the proposal is “probably”. The proposal must then be examined by the Council and European Parliament under the ‘ordinary legislative procedure’. The European Commission hopes that the reading can be completed before year end.

Read the press release here: here.

And the whole proposal here.

Concord Danmark in December 2009 launched the first citizens’ initiative: “Keep your promises to the poor”. Read more about the campaign here.

Concord Danmark organizes a study trip to Brussels for journalists and writers interested in development issues on the 1st and 2nd of June. The trip provides the participants with a thorough knowledge of the journalists’ working practices in Brussels and development issues on EU level.

On June 1st we visit five members of the European Parliament to gain insight on EU development policy in relation to i.e. climate, agriculture, the EU budget and safety. On the 2nd of June we visit NGO’s and international journalists associations to better understand how they work with the EU. We also pay a visit to the press service of the European Commission and the Permanent Representation of Denmark to get insights on their daily handling of and cooperation with the media.

The study trip is self financed, but the dinner in Brussels on the evening 1st of June is sponsored by Concord Denmark. 100 EUR must be expected for accommodation. Flight tickets can be booked for approximately 150 EUR for a return flight.

To register for the study trip, please write an email to info@concorddanmark.dk. Here you can also contact us for further questions, information etc.

EU countries must cooperate if Europe wants to have an impact on the global agenda in the future. That was the message of the EU’s new head of foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, in her speech to the European Parliament on the 10th of March. While Europe has experienced a decrease in its share of global GDP, countries such as China and India have experienced a massive increase. If the EU does not act now, others will take the crucial choices for us, she said.

“There is no time to run on automatic pilot, or to stick to a narrow defense of national ways of acting. It’s time to be wise and ambitious ", she stated.

The improved coordination among the EU countries shall in particularly be provided through the European External Action Service (EEAS), which Ashton herself will lead. The service will eventually come to include 6.000 to 7.000 persons. Ashton is expected to present a proposal for the structure of the service at the end of April.

The European Commission, with Connie Hedegaard leading the way, has presented a “post Copenhagen” strategy, which commits the EU to take lead and achieve a global legally binding climate agreement.

The strategy suggests a roadmap for the UN negotiating process which will be resumed in April, leading up to the next UN climate summit in Mexico in December. The policy guidelines of the Copenhagen agreement, which was not formally adopted as a UN resolution, must for example be incorporated into the UN negotiating texts to create the foundations for a future global climate agreement. The European Commission will initiate this in close cooperation with the Council and with support from the European Parliament.

Furthermore, the European Commission proposes in the strategy that the EU starts implementing the Copenhagen Accord. A rapid implementation of the EU’s commitment to provide 2.4 billion per year in the shape of financial aid for the “quick start” to developing countries in the period of 2010-2012 is essential to ensure that the recipient countries’ capacity to address climate change increases.

Moreover, the strategy once again states that if other big economies will follow suit, the EU will not only decrease 20 but 30 percent of its CO2 emissions in 2020. However, Commissioner of Climate, Connie Hedegaard, is skeptical about the possibility of achieving a binding agreement in Mexico, but she stresses: “The best way for Europe to show convincing leadership is to take concrete and determined action.”
Connie Hedegaard’s statement skepticism was criticized for not being ambitious enough, particularly by Dan Jørgensen, Vice President of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, who calls the strategy a “loser strategy”.

Read the European Commission press release here

Read the strategy here.

Head of EU foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, has boosted her diplomatic team and will at the end of March reveal the legal details behind the corps. The Spanish presidency wishes to reach a final agreement about the corps before the end of this month. Ashton has disseminated her ideas and proposals to the EU Member States and will present the proposals to the European Parliament tomorrow.

The future plans for the diplomatic corps of EU’s will be closely followed by Concord Danmark

In a leaked memo, the European Commission expresses serious concern that the EU Member States still do not fulfill their promises of development aid. The internal memo has come into possession of the Danish NGO Concord Denmark.

Far from achieving the goal
The memo reveals that the EU Member States are likely to be 100 billion DKK from achieving their aid objectives of 2010.

Read the full article here.

On the 3rd and 4th of March, Concord Danmark and Concord platforms in England and Holland, Bond and Partos, organized a study trip to Brussels with focus on the EU’s policies and processes. The 30 participants came from a variety of organizations, representing staff of program, funding and policy.

The first day of the study trip was a joint program including a visit to Concord Europe, DG Development and EuropeAid. On the second day, we visited the National Members of the European Parliament and national representations. The Danish delegation met Christel Schaldemose (S), Emilie Turunen (SF) and Dan Jørgensen (S) discussing the EU financial perspectives for 2013-2020, the reform of EU agricultural policy and the debate about Policy Coherence in Development. At Denmark’s Permanent Representative Counselor Flemming Nichols gave a briefing on the EU after the Lisbon Treaty has come into force and about the Danish Presidency in 2012. The last meeting of the study trip was with DG Trade with focus on sustainable development and the EPA’s (European Partnership Agreements).

Study trip in the autumn
The cross-national study trip was a great success and will be repeated in September 2010, where the focus will be on EU funding. Send an email to rvr@concorddanmark.dk for further information about the trip.

A new agreement for cooperation between the European Commission and European Parliament gives the publicly elected parliamentarians more power.

The right of initiative of the Commission and thus its monopoly to propose legislation has been maintained with the Lisbon Treaty. But a new agreement between the Commission and the Parliament allows the Parliament to urge the Commission to bring forward new legislation. If a Member of the European Parliament prepares a report of initiative and it is adopted by Parliament, the Commission must consider it and submit it as a bill. Member of European Parliament, Emilie Turunen, is already well under way to take advantage of this opportunity as she is preparing a report on unemployment among young people.

Furthermore, the Parliament will gain more influence due to the fact that the European Commission through the agreement has committed itself to closer cooperation with the Parliament which now has the right to obtain information on all stages of negotiations on international agreements.

The agreement was adopted on the 9th of February. The agreement can be accessed here.

The new EU Commissioner for development, Andris Piebalgs, held his first two speeches. They give a bearing on the priorities of his development policy and the reports are straight forward.

The EU is far from achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals goals
Andris Piebalgs will stick to the statement that the economic crisis is not an excuse to downgrade the UN Millennium Development Goals – the EU should instead play a leading role in all policy areas that affect developing countries. The central focus of the speeches is the UN’s Millennium Development Goals goal for poverty reduction, which the EU works to promote. Andris Piebalgs underlines: “We have to keep our promises and The Millennium Goals should be considered as ‘sacred cows’”. There is no excuse, according to Piebalgs, who stresses that the figures are alarming. The latest OECD statistics show that it is most unlikely that the goals for EU aid are met.

To give with one hand and take with the other
It is not realistic to achieve the Millennium Development Goals solely through aid. Piebalgs says that he is ready to mobilize all the instruments and policies that benefit the developing countries. He mentions that i.e. the EU’s foreign and security policy should address global health problems and take into account the need of people living in fragile states, and that the trade policy of the EU affects people’s access to medicine. Thus, he warns that there is a direct connection between what is done in these different policy areas, and whether for example the Millennium Development Goal on health can be achieved. Andris Piebalgs stresses the importance of the new Lisbon Treaty’s objectives of policy coherence for development (PCD) which demands the Union to take into account the effect on developing countries.

Facts
Only five of the 27 EU Member States meet their promises of development aid established in 2005 according to the latest AidWatch report.
Italy was to pay over 57 billion DKK in 2008, but paid less than 23 billion DKK – an economic difference larger than Haiti’s GNP.
Nine out of ten Europeans believe that development is important despite the economic crisis (study of development undertaken by the Commission in 2009).
The Commission is nominally the second largest aid donor.
In September the UN MDG summit takes place in New York.
The two speeches can be found here (link)

It concerns Andris Piebalgs’ speech to the conference: “Global Health for All”: Global Health: A Millennium Development Goal and a Right for All " from the 2nd of March in Brussels and his speech to the conference “Five years to go”: The challenges of meeting the Millennium Development Goals” in Brussels on 3 March.

In about five years the UN Millennium Development Goals goals must be realized. The goals shall among other things reduce poverty and hunger by half, ensure education for all and combat HIV/AIDS and malaria. The goals were adopted ten years ago by 189 of the world’s leaders. In 2005 the EU published a series of measures to accelerate the achievement of the objectives, such as greater coherence between the different EU policy areas such as trade, agriculture and security and that the EU countries together, should donate 0.56 percent of their GNI in 2015. But the goals are still far from being achieved.

NGO-Forum now invites Danish development NGOs to a public meeting 22nd of March, so the goals can become a reality. So far 36 Danish NGOs are attending the public meeting to focus on achieving the goals and increase the pressure on politicians.

Concord Danmark now monitors EU’s calls for proposals. This provides our members with a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of the EU development programs worldwide. For questions regarding the monitoring service, please send an email to: calls@concorddanmark.dk.