EU: A number of leading development NGOs have accused some of the richest member-states in the EU of penny-pinching in a report published yesterday.
The report, by Oxfam, Eurodad and Action Aid, says that member-states are not doing enough to support a UN target to halve poverty by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals.
A commitment by rich donor countries in 1970 to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) on foreign aid has been met by just four of the 25 EU member-states - Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.
This is "inexcusable", says the report, singling out Germany and Italy for criticism.
"Italy is one of the world's wealthiest nations, yet gives only a miserly 0.17 per cent of its GNI," says the report, while Germany's current trends mean it will not reach the target until 2087.
Other member-states were singled out for not setting a timetable for achieving the GNI target or, as in Ireland's case, abandoning its timetable.
"Ireland deserves a special black mark for abandoning its plans to reach the target of 0.7 per cent by 2007," says the report. The Government said last year it would not meet this target by 2007 despite an earlier pledge by the Taoiseach.
The Government currently spends 0.41 per cent of GNI which makes it the seventh most generous among the 15 old EU member-states - well ahead of Italy (0.17) and Austria (0.2) but well behind Denmark (0.84) and the Netherlands (0.81).
The Republic is also mentioned as one of those "committed allies" who fight to maintain the status quo on the Common Agricultural Policy - a policy which has been hugely beneficial to Irish farmers but which results in the dumping of subsidised agricultural products on poor countries' markets.
However, it is not all black marks for Ireland. The Republic receives praise for being the first EU member-state to argue in favour of cancelling multi-lateral debts for poor countries.
It also has a relatively high percentage of aid going to the poorest countries in the world and all of its aid is untied, meaning there are no conditions attached.
By contrast, 92 per cent of Italian aid was tied to the purchase of Italian goods and services in 2001, while Austria and Spain tie more than half of their aid. Much-lauded EU policies such as the "Everything but Arms" initiative also come under attack in the report.
The impact of this 2001 policy, which gives the world's poorest countries duty-free access for all products except arms, has been "negligible".
"More than 99 per cent of products from the poorest countries were already theoretically eligible for duty-free access to Europe's markets," it says.
The NGOs said it was too early to judge the new European Commission's performance on trade - an area where it has competence to negotiate for the EU. "The rhetoric is there," said Mr Luis Morago of Oxfam but he said the real test would be World Trade Organisation talks in December.