Committee on Development vote on amendments to Budget 2007

Brussels, 11 September 2006 - At its meeting on Monday 4 September in Strasbourg, the European Parliament's Committee on Development adopted its first reading amendments to the 2007 EU budget.

Amongst the highlights of the vote was the adoption of a set of compromise amendments to include clear indicative benchmarks for the allocation of EU aid. The compromise amendments provide for 50% of annual commitments to be allocated to support social infrastructure, including 20% to be allocated in support of basic health and basic education, and are applicable to all geographic regions.

In addition to the the inclusion of benchmarks for social sector spending, the Committee also voted to put 30% of funds for co-operation with developing countries in Latin America and Asia into the reserve for release only when the Commission demonstrates that it has programmed to meet those benchmarks.

Some other highlights of the vote include:

• splitting the budget line on human and social development under the new Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) into four separate budget lines: health, education, gender and other aspects of human and social development;
• increasing the amount of funds avaialble for co-operation with developing countries in Asia;
• increasing the amount of funds available for civil society organisations and local authorities in development, and
• decreasing to the level in Budget 2006 the amount of funds available for co-operation with non-developing countries.

The adopted amendments will now be tabled for vote in the Committee on Budgets during its meeting 3 - 5 October in Brussels.

For more information about the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Development, please contact Ben Moore ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).