EU: Bob Geldof let rip at the European Union aid chief, who criticised British plans to cut Third World debt, during a British government-sponsored conference on Africa yesterday in Addis Ababa.
"He's talking through his arse, quite frankly," Geldof said of Mr Poul Nielson. "He shouldn't have his job if he doesn't want to help."
Earlier in Brussels, Mr Neilson, the EU's Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, said the British government's plan would force future generations to pay the price of glory for today's politicians.
Britain has vowed to use its chairmanship of the G8 bloc of industrial nations during 2005 and the EU in the second half of the year to make African issues a priority, including debt.
One key proposal for reducing poverty and debt, drafted by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown, is the International Finance Facility (IFF), aimed at doubling aid to the poorest countries.
Mr Brown says it would double aid to $100 billion a year (€81.3 billion) by issuing bonds in the capital markets using donor countries' long-term funding commitments as collateral - effectively securitising their aid budgets.
"To impose on our children in the donor countries the burden of actually paying what we now take the glory for doing, that I don't like," Mr Nielson said. Geldof was scathing. "It's rich of the EU aid commissioner. He should look to his own books. They're wholly woeful in what they do.
"I think the debt relief issue is economic sophistry if that's what he's suggesting. I think the IFF is elegant, timely, simple, necessary." The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Mr Meles Zenawi also brushed off the EU commissioner's comment, although using more diplomatic language.
Earlier, Mr Blair told the conference that poverty and conflict in Africa had made it a refuge for terrorists. "We know that poverty and instability leads to weak states, which can become havens for terrorists and other criminals."