EU Billion’s Last Week
It’s been almost 5 months coming, but hopefully on Friday we’ll finally know if the European Union will dedicate an additional 1 billion Euros to help struggling farmers in the developing world. For the last month we’ve turned on the heat to make sure these farmers get as much help as possible.
It feels like Eloise Todd – our Government Relations Manager – doesn’t live in London any more as she has been constantly in Brussels and Strasbourg. Yesterday, she just delivered our petition with over 13,000 signatures to Alain Joyandet, Secrétaire d’Etat chargé de la Coopération et de la Francophonie (Minister of State responsible for Cooperation and Francophony) at the European Development Days in Strasbourg.
ONE members across the EU have also sent nearly 5,000 emails and letters to their national finance ministers and chancellors, urging them commit to giving as much additional aid as possible. On Friday, 21 November, these finance ministers will be signing off on the European Budget and we’ll know how well all our hard work as paid off.
The key thing to watch out for this Friday is how much will be additional within the EU budget. After that, we can’t afford to take our eye off the ball in case countries try to finance this from their bilateral aid budgets. If they take this money from within their aid budgets, we’re looking at this additional billion not being additional at all. The money must be additional and spent on the most urgent needs of farmers in the developing world. We want a political commitment on additionality at the budget negotiations on Friday. We’ll keep you posted on how things look.
-Weldon Kennedy
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November 19, 2008 at 3:21 am
“The key thing to watch out for this Friday is how much will be additional within the EU budget.” – In short, “We want more money….for free.”
“After that, we can’t afford to take our eye off the ball in case countries try to finance this from their bilateral aid budgets.” – We are going to scream bloody murder if you use give us money that was already allocated for aid. You must give us money that has come from somewhere else.
“If they take this money from within their aid budgets, we’re looking at this additional billion not being additional at all.” – We’ll still get your billion, but will decry you in the streets for where you got it from.
“The money must be additional and spent on the most urgent needs of farmers in the developing world.” – A demand clarified.
“We want a political commitment on additionality at the budget negotiations on Friday.” – When taken for what it really is, this last sentance, when used to close the paragraph, tells all about the intent of ONE.org. ONE.org wants more money, wants to dictate to a government where that money must come from, where it goes to and they want to hold a government accountable.
I like the whole “it can’t be from your bilateral aid budget” thing. That screams not only greed, but control issues as well. After reading that, anyONE could simply assume that ONE.org needs to control a piece of the government to secure it’s funding.
This whole thing shows the state of ONE.org’s thankless heart. When you come to America and try and do this with my government, post it up, I want to call them and remind them that ONE.org not only doesn’t deserve my tax money for a variety of reasons, but that they should cut your funding for being ungrateful and arrogant. When will you learn oh “ONE” that heavy handed tactics don’t work when you have no actual power?
May 3, 2009 at 8:51 am
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