22 Amendments of Bart STAES related to 2010/2300(INI)
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Ccalls on the Commission to ensure, before the aid is granted, its complementarity with both the national programmes and the programmes designed by other donorsbudget support is granted, that the aims of the intervention are part of national programmes of the recipient country and that the principles of coordination, complementarity and coherence in relation to other donors are respected, as well as itsthe additionality to the resources allocated by the recipient country;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. with a view to ensuring relevance of EU budget support, calls on the Commission, to streamline its programming and design process by improving the preparation and documentation of the decisions to launch budget support operations and, given resource constraints in Delegations, which often limit their capacity to perform certain activities, calls on the Commission to provide sufficient qualified staff for the implementation, as budget support requires different analytical skills from project and programme financing;
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas many donors consider general and sectoral budget support as a means of fostering partner countries’ ownership of development policies and reform processes, strengthening national accountability institutions and systems, and facilitating growth, poverty reduction and the achievement of development objectives,
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. is concerned about the fact that the Court of Auditors (the Court) in its Annual Report on the activities funded by the eighth, ninth and tenth European Development Funds (EDFs) for the financial year 2009 found budget support payments to be affected by a high frequency of non-quantifiable errors due to lack of formalised and structured demonstration of the compliance with payment conditions; at the same time takes note of and welcomes a substantial improvement in the demonstration of eligibility noticed by the Court under 10th EDF owing to clearer assessment frameworks that are now routinely used;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5 b. calls on the Commission to ensure that the specific conditions for performance-based variable tranches clearly specify the indicators, targets, calculation methods and verification sources and that Delegations’ reports provide a structured and formalised demonstration of public finance management progress by clearly setting the criteria against which progress is to be assessed, the progress made and the reasons why the reform programme may have not been implemented according to plan;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls on the Commission to take all necessary measures in order to combat corruption in the recipient countries, through maintaining a close and regular dialogue with partner governments on corruption issues and through paying sufficient attention to the capacity-building needs of particular recipient countries in terms of accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms, notes that among the 27 ACP countries that are not in a fragile situation and for which GBS has been planned in the country strategy papers for the 10th EDF, 12 of them, on the basis of the 2009 Corruption Perception Index, are classified as having ‘rampant corruption‘, from the six Latin American and Asian countries with GBS programmes, five of them have the same classification;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. in this respect, insists on the effective implementation of the requirement contained in Article 25 (b) of the Regulation (EC) No 1905/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation (DCI Regulation), which stipulates that "the Commission shall consistently use an approach based on results and performance indicators and shall clearly define and monitor its conditionality and support efforts of partner countries to develop parliamentary control and audit capacities and to increase transparency and public access to information," and urges the Commission to extend these provisions to budget support to beneficiary countries of the European Development Fund(the ACP countries), for which - so far - only the more technical criteria of Article 61 (2) of the Cotonou Agreement apply;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas the European Union has hitherto referred more frequently to violations of human rights (‘first- generation rights’) in partnership agreements rather than to violations of socio- economic rights (‘second-generation rights’),
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1b. Is of the view that taxation, which reinforces citizens’ rights to hold their respective governments accountable, build a democratic society and guarantees an independent financial source for sustainable development, is an important bond between government and citizens of developing countries;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Stresses the need to use sectoral budget support wherever appropriate in order to ensure better targeting of basic social sectors including health, education, and assistance for the most vulnerable groups, in particular persons with disabilities;
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Draws attention to the EU’s innovative role in the field of budget support and stresses that the EU has a responsibility to develop a methodology and conditionality arrangements that also apply to other donorsthe added value which the Commission brings owing to its expertise in this area;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Stresses that the Union has a responsibility to pass on its experience to other institutional stakeholders, in particular at the High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Stresses the need to strengthen both the Commission’s monitoring mechanisms and parliamentary and civil-society scrutiny in countries in receipt of budget support; stresses also that optimum procedures must be established for auditing the public finances of recipient countries as a precondition for any disbursement of funds;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Stresses therefore the importance of involving parliaments and civil society in the dialogue on anti-poverty policieInsists on the leading role that national parliaments of recipient countries and civil society organisations should play as they are best placed to identify priority sector, prepare Country Strategy Papers and monitor budget allocation, demands that national parliaments adopt Country Strategy Papers and multiannual reviews of budgetary supportbudget in consultation with civil society, prior to policy dialogue with donors on Budget Support, in order to empower parliamentary scrutiny;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Calls on the EU to respect and promote genuine ownership of developing countries over their development strategy and to refrain from crowding out national policy-makers through policy dialogue surrounding budget support, which undermines democratic accountability and contributes to depoliticise domestic political realities;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Is concerned at the effects of macro- economic destabilisation and the impact on the most vulnerable sections of the population which a sudden break in budget support might cause; proposes that, on the basis of concerted action by donors and following consultation of the civil society and parliament of the partner country concerned, a mechanism be set up for the gradual reduction of budget support payments, which could attenuate such impacts, encourage political dialogue and enable concerted solutions to be found to the difficulties encountered;
Amendment 58 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Points out that, when granting budget support to banana-supplying ACP countries benefiting from accompanying measures in this sector, it is important to include in the variable tranche based on governance indicators the specific conditions contained in the new Article 17a ofthat Parliament is proposing be inserted in Regulation (EC) No 1905/2006 (DCI Regulation), as set out in an amendment in the position of the European Parliament adopted at second reading on 3 February 2011 with a view to the adoption of Regulation (EU) No .../2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 1905/2006 establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation1; __________________ 1Texts adopted, P7_TA(2011)0030. 1 Texts adopted, P7_TC2- COD(2010)0059.
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Considers that oil and mineral rich countries have the potential to finance their own development and fight against poverty through transparent tax collection systems and fair redistribution of wealth; calls therefore on the Commission to address this issue as a matter of priority in order to phase out budget support;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Takes the view that, in principle, MDG contracts are an example of high- quality, results-oriented budget support (long-term, predictable, targeted at social sectors, etc.); calls accordingly on the Commission to publish an assessment of MDG contracts in 2011 and to look into the feasibility of extending them to a larger number of countries;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Calls on the Member States to show greater consistency at national and Community level as regards development aid policy; calls on the Member States to make use of the European External Action Service to strengthen their coordination with the Commission as regards budget support so as to avoid duplication and inconsistency;