European Union member states' sluggish implementation of pledges on overseas development aid risk undermining the bloc's credibility abroad, the European Commission has warned in an unusually outspoken paper leaked today, according to dpa. The EU is currently trying to win international support for its climate-change goals by pledging 10 billion dollars in climate aid to poor countries over the next three years. At the same time, member states have vowed to increase official development aid (ODA) to 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) by 2015. But a leaked paper from the commission, the EU's executive, warns that there is a "risk of conflict" between the two pledges, with EU member states' weak performance on the ODA pledge potentially undermining its credibility on climate funding. The states whose ODA offers are below the target "endanger the performance of the EU as a whole," the commission's paper stressed. Last week the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that EU heavyweights France, Germany and Italy were falling woefully short of their ODA targets. Aid from Italy, in particular, is less than half of what it should be to hit the goal. That poor performance undercuts ODA donations by states such as Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, who have already hit the 2015 target. On April 20, the commission, which drafts the EU's laws and makes sure member states obey them, is expected to propose new ways of making members live up to their commitments. The proposals are expected to call for national timetables for boosting ODA and for EU states to follow the system in Britain - seen as one of the EU's most consistent ODA donors - by fixing aid targets in national legislation. International aid charity Oxfam welcomed the commission paper as "helpful and timely". "The commission has taken a brave step in stressing that member states' failure on aid commitments is a risk to the overall credibility of the EU on the world stage. Europe cannot afford to gamble with its global reputation in this way," Oxfam spokeswoman Elise Ford said. "France and Germany present themselves as European leaders, yet on aid they are lagging shamefully behind and undermining the credibility of the EU's commitment to tackling poverty," she said.
