Comhlámh held a debate last week on an aspect of the EU and the Lisbon Treaty that is often overlooked, that of overseas development aid. Tom Arnold, Director of Concern and a Patron of Ireland for Europe, spoke in favour of the motion, “Is Lisbon 2 a Good Treaty for Development”, with Andy Storey, AFRI, against.
Development aid has been a feature of the European project since the Lomé Convention in 1975, negotiated with Dr Garret FitzGerald as Foreign Minister during the Irish Presidency. It was renogiated in 1981, again during the Irish presidency, with Michael O’Kennedy as Foreign Minister.
The Lisbon Treaty adds new language committing the European Union to aiding developing countries.
Article 3.5“It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.”
and this is reiterated in Article 208,
“Union development cooperation policy shall have as its primary objective the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty. The Union shall take account of the objectives of development cooperation in the policies that it implements which are likely to affect developing countries.”
For those concerned that Ireland’s reputation as an aid donator will be subsumed into a larger EU development aid policy, the Treaty of Lisbon will classify development cooperation and humanitarian aid as “shared parallel competences”. This means that the EU conducts an autonomous policy, which neither prevents the Member States from exercising their competences nor makes the Union’s policy merely “complementary” to those of the Member States. Irish Aid, the development arm of the Department of Foreign Affairs, has recently “committed to ensuring that 20 per cent of our total overseas aid budget is devoted to specific actions to reduce hunger”.
The reduction and eventual eradication of hunger is a goal that all EU Member States have a moral imperative to commit to. Under the Lisbon Treaty this goal will be given further impetus and acknowledged as a policy unto itself rather than a sporadic priority.
The debate centred on whether there was a conflict on the Union’s aims of ending trade barriers and of aiding developing countries. In response to this point, Tom Arnold argued that this Treaty was certainly an advance in existing Treaty language, and that ultimately it remains a challenge to translate the opportunity of language to real change. He emphasized the strong role Ireland has played in this and other areas, and that our influence could be seriously diminished by a No vote. This is one area where Ireland has placed a particular emphasis, and where an Irish voice is important in steering the EU’s direction, as a voice of a country without a colonial past.
Tags: Aid
Pleace vote for democracy and against the treaty of lisbon
Dear irish people!
Pleace stop the treaty of lisbon! Is is antidemocartic, militaristic, antisocial. The disadvantages are much bigger, than the advantages. The EU can live with its actuell laws. They should only be changed into a democratic direction. With the treaty of lisbon, the european council is able to change this treaty in great parts without asking the parliament. This is nearly the same law, which mades the nationl- rassistic- party of Germany so powerfull in our country in the year 1933. Our basic law (the german constitution) and all other european constitutions should not be replaced by the treaty of lisbon. But the new treaty tries to bring all right- sytstems in a lower level than the new european right. Here is my informationpage: http://sites.google.com/site/euradevormwald/english . When you have some more english information, pleace send me a link or text or write it into the visitors book of my page…
Felix, if you want to scare us with visions of a re-emergence of Nazism in Europe should the Treaty pass. Bear in mind that there is one political party in Ireland who bear a remarkable resemblance to that other Socialist visionary Adolf Hitler.
This organisation still possess the capability of launching terror attacks and have a dark para-military cloud still about them. They aspire to power by any means possible. They describe themselves as nationalist and socialists. Sound familiar yet?
They are Sinn Féin. The political representatives of the Provisional IRA and the only party in Dáil Eireann who oppose the Treaty of Lisbon. That’s who you are aligning yourself with……left-wing militarists and small minded nationalists who opposed the creation of the European Union. A Union which has been the sole driver in ensuring such petty nationalism never again sends our continent into the despair and horrors visited upon it in the past.
Hitler was no socialist! This was a propagandatrick. Hitler was financed by the big combines. And it was a very litle law, which gave hiom the legal power 1933: The government is allowed for four years to make laws without parliament by decret. the lisbon treaty has many similar parts and I am afraid, thatr the same combines are beheind this treaty, top reduce democratic contoll.
The treaty is incalculable. There are many sentences, which sounds very good. But a lot of protocols, which have the same level, like the main part of the treaty, say, what is ment.
I will not live under a treaty, which gives several undifinated reasons for wars!
The german constitution is clear: An attac- war must not be! You will not fimnd this sentence in the treaty, but their are reasons for war. This is inacceptable.
I do not know a lot about about Sinn Fein. But we say in germany, also a blind hen can find a corn! When Sinn Fein is against the treaty, I do not know their reasons. But there…