Activities of Ricardo CORTÉS LASTRA related to 2011/0177(APP)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2014-2020
Amendments (10)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recalls that the 2015 deadlines for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the collective target of 0.7 % of gross national income to be provided as official development assistance (ODA/GNI) both fall due within the 2014-2020 MFF period; underlines that, after witnessing severe drops in ODA levels from 2010 to 2011 in 14 EU Member States and a decrease in the collective ODA/GNI level from 0.42% to 0.4%, the next MFF constitutes a critical opportunity for EU donors to redouble their efforts to get back on track and comply with their international commitments; emphasises that the EU's development budget complements the efforts of Member States and helps them to reach these targets, with a particularly significant leverage effect on the aid budgets of smallerome Member States, irrespective of their size;
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Is particularly proud that the quality of EU aid has significantly improved over the past decade, making the EU institutions today a global leader in aid effectiveness and transparency12, with measurable and substantial results in terms of tangible improvements to the lives of millions of people in developing countries; recalls, moreover, the vital role of the EU institutions in coordinating European development policy and assistance and the comparative advantage of EU aid in a number of areas, which allows the EU to deliver its aid often with greater efficiency, effectiveness and predictability than individual Member States 1 See inter alia: 'European Union Peer Review 2012.' OECD Development Assistance Committee, 24.04.2012; and: 'The Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment 2009: Is Aid Quality Improving?' Brookings Institution and Center for Global Development, 04.02.2012. 2 See inter alia: 'European Union Peer Review 2012.' OECD Development Assistance Committee, 24.04.2012; and: 'The Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment 2009: Is Aid Quality Improving?' Brookings Institution and Center for Global Development, 04.02.2012. could through bilateral programmes;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Stresses that the EU budget plays a key role by providing Member States with the possibility to cooperate with countries where they are not present and to continue supporting countries where they have stopped cooperation programmes, particularly in fragile states and in post- conflict situations; recalls that, thanks to the EU's development aid, 31 million people now have access to drinking water and 9 million to sanitation facilities; 5 million children have been vaccinated against measles; there are 9 million new pupils in primary education, 700.000 teachers have had access to training, and more than 80.000 female students have been enrolled in secondary education; therefore urges the Council to continue its support with sufficient means for our added value to human development and the eradication of poverty;
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the increase in the heading 4 financial envelope proposed by the Commission, emphasisingas compared to the MFF 2007-2013; underlines, nevertheless, that the proposal presented by the Commission in 2004 for the MFF 2007 -2013 was bigger in real terms than its proposal for 2014-2020; emphasises that heading 4, which was chronically underfunded under the MFF 20080-2006 and 2007-2013, should not fall victim to cuts inspired by the austerity climate that prevails in a number of Member States; is of the opinion that an ambitious level of funding for the external instruments, as proposed by the Commission in its Communication 'A Budget for Europe 2020'12, in particular for the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), humanitarian aid and the European Development Fund (EDF), which respectively take up merely 2 %, 0.62 % and 2.96 % of the proposed total EU budget, is critical for the Union and its Member States to meet their international development commitments;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph a (new)
Paragraph a (new)
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Underlines that PCD, as enshrined in Article 208 of the TFEU, must emerge and remain as a key horizontal principle during the MFF negotiations;
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Strongly defends the need to maintain the Emergency Aid Reserve, which has shown to work particularly well in its present form, as a ringfenced,n unprogrammed reserve outside the MFF 2014-2020 ceilings and to provide it with a significant, realistic financial allocation, enabling the Union to respond quickly to unforeseen needs and unexpected crises via an ad-hoc mobilisation whenever necessary; underlines that the integration of the Emergency Aid reserve into heading 4 as advocated by some Member States risks resulting in a decrease of overall funding available for EU external action, in particular for development funding; strongly welcomes the Commission's proposal to increase its funding to EUR 350 million (2011 prices) compared to MFF 2014-2020 and to allow its use up to the year n+1 as a very positive step in the right direction; emphasises that the Emergency Aid Reserve should remain outside the MFF ceilings in order to guarantee the independence, flexibility and speed which are crucial for effective humanitarian aid delivery;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Underlines the global responsibility of the EU in tackling climate change; recalls that pledges resulting from the Copenhagen and Cancun agreements aimed at helping developing countries to address climate change must be "new and additional" to the existing development aid with an adequate level of coherence being maintained between the two policies; calls, consequently, for the EU to remain ambitious, notwithstanding the current economic crisis, and for EU climate funding to be fully additional to the 0.7% ODA target and traceable across the EU budget; expects a strong political commitment from the Commission and the Council in that respect;
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Favours, in principle, budgetisation of the European Development Fund (EDF); insists, however, that incorporating the EDF into the EU budget must imply the transfer of the entire EDF funding within heading 4 and should under no circumstances be used as a pretext for reducing overall spending for the EU's external action in general, and development assistance in particular, and must lead to greater predictability of aid; is of the opinion that, in light of the current budgetary and economic crisis, the risk of EDF budgetisation leading to a decrease of the overall funding level for cooperation with ACP partners is too high; urges the Commission to live up to its commitments to bring forward without delay proposals for aligning Parliament's scrutiny of the EDF to the scrutiny rights that exist under the EU general budget, specifically the DCI, as well as for budgetising the EDF starting with the post 2020 MFF.
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Reiterates its position that the new responsibilities conferred on the EU by the Treaties will require appropriate additional funding compared to MFF 2007-2013, so as to allow the Union to fulfil its role as a global actor whilst upholding the undertakings it has already given , notably the achievement of Member States 0.7% and 0.33% GNI spending targets for the ODA and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015; ;underlines the complementary nature of EU assistance to that provided by the Member States, and its catalyst effect in terms of intervening in regions where bilateral assistance is not delivered; is particularly supportive of joint programming between Member States and EU actions; Underlines that PCD, as enshrined in Article 208 of the TFEU, must emerge and remain as a key horizontal principle during the MFF negotiations;