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Matthew Vella
Foreign Minister Michael Frendo has rebutted accusations from NGOs that Malta is pledging aid to Third World countries only on condition of having migrants repatriated, claiming the Cotonou Agreement allowed such conditionality.
The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) last week said Frendo wanted Maltese aid to be conditional on the acceptance of the repatriation of migrants.
“Eurodad is being unreasonably simplistic,” Frendo told MaltaToday yesterday. “The issue, which I raised in an EU context, is that in Article 13 of the Cotonou Agreement, signatories bound themselves to accept back illegal immigrants. Pacta sunt servanda. Honouring international commitments is an issue of good governance which should be ‘incentivised’.”
Last week, Eurodad lambasted Malta’s contributions on development aid, saying the figures were inflated by spending on student scholarships on migrants’ needs in Malta – rather than directly addressing the causes of poverty in developing countries.
According to the European Commission’s April 2007 figures, Malta spent EUR7 million or 0.15% of GNI on ODA in 2006 – less than what it contributed in 2004, when it spent 0.18% in overseas development aid. The figure then was claimed to be inflated by over 40 per cent, according to Eurodad.
But Michael Frendo has accused the NGO of “insensitivity” for claiming Malta’s development aid was inflated due to spending on refugees and asylum seekers being accommodated in Malta.
“For Eurodad to say that the monies the Maltese spend on illegal immigration should not be considered as development aid is not only technically incorrect in terms of DAC rules,” Frendo said referring to OECD aid regulations. “It also shows a paternalistic insensitivity to the grave situation of the Maltese as we cope with this phenomenon while inhabiting a territory which, at 1,200 persons per square kilometre, is one of the most densely populated in the world.”
The NGO claims Maltese aid has actually been decreasing proportionally since 2004, and it was “next to impossible” to say how much of this reported ODA is made up of genuine resources, due to a lack of transparency.
A request by MaltaToday to the foreign minister for the official development aid figure it contributed in 2006 has so far not been answered.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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