Newsletter Fair Politics March 2011

Dear reader,

With this newsletter we like to keep you informed on the work of Fair Politics and recent developments around Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) and our policy case studies in particular. In the past few months a new case study was published on our website namely Fair Taxes. Furthermore the Raw Materials Initiative case study was updated taking into account the RMI communication of the Commission which was published last February.

We also continued monitoring all parliamentary questions, reports, opinions amendments etc. related to PCD. Here is a short update: EPP has taken over the lead from S&D with 18 points; followed by S&D, the Greens, GUE/NGL and ALDE (reps. 15, 13, 12 and 11 points). We encourage all MEPs to keep asking questions on PCD topics in order to become the Fair Politician of the 2010/2011 parliamentary year. This prize will be awarded coming June! 

Enjoy reading!

The Commission must decouple cotton subsidies!

The debate about the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is due in 2013, has started in Brussels. MEP Louis Michel (ALDE) urges the Commission to include the cotton subsidies in the reform. In West-Africa 15 million people are directly dependent on cotton production. Today cotton has only been decoupled for 65%, which means that 35% of the subsidies are calculated based on production. Most other agricultural products have been decoupled for 90%. The subsidies for European cotton farmers are causing market distorting effects, which are negatively affecting the African cotton farmers. Read More

New Case study on Fair Taxes

The focus of development cooperation is usually on the amount of money transferred as aid from the North to the South. However a tremendous amount of money is leaving developing countries in the form of illegal financial flows. There is actually more money leaving developing countries than is received by overseas development aid. The estimates vary, but run up to 10 times more outflow than inflow. Local governments in developing countries are thus missing out on many funds, which they could spend to stimulate development. On one hand the EU is supporting developing countries by its development policy and aid programmes, but on the other hand the EU and in particular its Member States are enabling corporations to escape their tax responsibilities in developing countries. This is a flagrant case of incoherent policy. Read our new case study here 

Join us on Facebook!

With twittering politicians and revolutions being arranged via Facebook, Fair Politics cannot stay behind. Therefore, Fair Politics can now also be found on Facebook. Together with the division of Fair Politics in the Netherlands a Facebook page has been launched at the beginning of March. Become a fan of Fair Politics and stay updated on interesting news items, petitions and updates on the website. We would like you to become active in discussing and commenting on our Facebook page, and if you have interesting news in relation to PCD yourself, please let us know! 

Students present their policy recommendations in the European Parliament.

On the 28th of February, the winning group of the EVF Student Symposium,’World of Plenty’ organised by the EVF last November, came to Brussels to present their proposal. During the symposium in November different master classes on the topics: water, food, land, energy, biodiversity, minerals and finance were given. The winning masterclass, on renewable energy, won a trip to the European Parliament to present their ideas to MEPs Thijs Berman (S&D) and Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA) who were very enthusiastic about the ideas and seemed willing to cooperate. Read More 

Updated case: Raw Materials Initiative

In February the European Commission published a new communication on raw materials, which functions as an update to the Raw Materials Initiative which was launched in 2008. The new communication makes some steps in the right direction in terms of more Policy Coherence for Development. The implementation of Country by Country reporting is suggested to provide for more transparency in the supply chain and the development of an EU code of conduct for EU companies operating in third countries is proposed. Besides it is recognised that developing countries should have the opportunity to add value to their raw materials themselves, this in order to be able to move up the value chain. Promising suggestions, however these are just words for now.
Read our updated case study!

 

Kind regards,

Suzan Cornelissen and Wiea van der Zwan

The Fair Politics EU team