Downing Street Says » EU Development Ministers Meeting

» Tuesday, May 24, 2005

EU Development Ministers Meeting

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised that there was an announcement today from Brussels following the EU Development Minister’s meeting of an agreement to increase the collective aid target for the EU from 0.39% Gross National Income (GNI) by 2010 up to 0.56% GNI. We believed that this was a significant boost and it meant that we would move faster toward the UN Millenium Goals, which were on the agenda for New York. It was also a significant boost to getting a comprehensive package at the G8. Equally, as a word of caution, this was only one part of the financing package and we continued to push forward for progress on multilateral debt, trade and the IFF within the EU and the G8 groups. There would be words from Hilary Benn and people should contact DfiD for those.

In response to the suggestion that we had wanted a 0.7% increase and that was what Hilary Benn had been pushing for but our European partners had not felt they could go along with it the PMOS said that what was important that we reached the 0.7% by the target date, 2015. In terms of the EU as a whole this was a significant step forward and that was what it would be seen as. This was only one part of the package, but it was a significant boost within that part of the package.

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