Rich EU member states under fire for being stingy

A number of EU member states - some of them among the richest in the world - have been strongly criticised by development agencies for being tight-fisted.

A report published by leading development NGOs, OXFAM, Eurodad and Action Aid, say that EU countries are not doing enough to meet a United Nations target to reduce poverty by 2015.

A commitment agreed by rich donor countries in 1970 to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) on aid has been met by just four of the 25 EU member states - Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark - which the report describes as "inexcusable".

The report says that rich countries "give half as much aid, as a proportion of their income as they did in the 1960s" and notes that the EU "will be absolutely key" to making sure the world sticks to its promises.

At the top of the expenditure league are Denmark (0.84% of GNI) and the Netherlands (0.81% of GNI) but the report expresses concern about a slackening off in both countries - in 2001, Copenhagen gave 1.03 percent.

Germany and Italy come in for particular criticism at the other end of the table.

Rome spends just 0.17 per cent of its GNI while Berlin, on its current course, is only likely to fulfil the commitment by 2087.

Meanwhile, other member states, such as Portugal, Greece, Austria and Ireland, have set no date for reaching this goal or some, like the UK, have set 2013 - just two years before the UN deadline.

"That's far too late", said Louise Hilditch of Action Aid who says that much poorer new member states, such as the Czech Republic and Slovenia, are "hot on the heels of some of those laggards".

Naming and shaming
She also criticised member states for not making aid data easily available and suggested that the European Commission should "really publicise" information that national governments send in in its yearly report on development aims.

For the other strands of the report, easing unsustainable debt and making the rules of world trade fairer, the EU also does not stand up under scrutiny.

Luis Morago from Oxfam pointed out that the impact of the EU's much-lauded 'Everything but arms' initiative - which gives the world's poorest countries duty-free access for all products except arms - is "negligible".

"More than 99 per cent of products from the poorest countries were already theoretically eligible for duty-free access to Europe's markets", says the report.

Similarly, the EU's action in giving debt relief to developing countries has been slow.

Of the 295bn euro owed by 52 poor countries, only 36bn euro has been cancelled.

"European countries have the opportunity to show leadership in consigning poor countries' debt to a thing of the past. Instead, they are dragging their heels, said Alex Wilks of Eurodad, a European network on debt.

The UN Millennium Development Goals are a commitment by global leaders to halve poverty and hunger and improve standards of health by 2015.