Activities of Paul RÜBIG related to 2017/2146(DEC)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh European Development Funds for the financial year 2016
Amendments (3)
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Supports the use of budget support but urges the Commission to better define and clearly assess the development outcomes to be achieved in each case and above all to enhance control mechanisms concerning recipient States’ conduct in the fields of corruption, respect of human rights, rule of law and democracy; expresses deep concern about the potential use of budget support in countries lacking democratic oversight, either due to the lack of a functioning parliamentary democracy or freedoms for civil society and the media, or due to a lack of capacity of oversight bodies; notes the Court’s Special Report 35/2016 on the use of budget support for domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) in sub- Saharan Africa, which finds that the Commission’s ex- ante analyses of DRM are not sufficiently detailed and do not follow its own guidelines, that the Commission often fails to assess tax exemptions and illicit capital outflows and does not properly consider extraction dividends and whether royalties for access to natural resources have been paid; is concerned about the Commission’s low and sometimes not relevant use of DRM conditions in budget support contracts;
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the European Court of Auditors’ special report 11/2017 on the Bêkou EU trust fund for the Central African Republic; recognises that despite some shortcomings the trust fund was a hopeful beginning and observes that setting up a trust fund was a rapid response to the need to link relief, rehabilitation and development; calls on the Commission to follow the Court’s recommendations to prepare guidance on the choice of aid vehicle (trust fund or other); this guidance must reflect the considerapossible risks and disadvantage with trust funds and the mixed experience of their use so far; regrets that the fund has not significantly improved general donor coordination;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Calls on the Commission to incorporate an incentive-based approach to development by introducing the more- for-more principle, taking as an example the European Neighbourhood Policy; believes that the more and the faster a Country progresses in its internal reforms to the building and consolidation of democratic institutions, the eradication of corruption, the respect for human rights and the rule of law, the more support it should receive from the Union; stresses that this “positive conditionality” approach, accompanied by a strong focus on financing small-scale projects for rural communities, can bring real change and guarantee that Union tax payers’ money is spent in a more sustainable manner; on the other hand, strongly condemns any attempt to make aid conditional on border control;