The European Union is poised to push other rich nations to increase aid for poor African countries and to live up to earlier aid promises, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said Tuesday, according to dpa. Following talks with Irish rocker-activist Bono, Barroso said the EU would use next month's meeting of the world's richest nations as a platform to push for more aid for Africa. "We cannot accept that the great and richest of the world do not fulfil their commitments," Barroso said, adding that he would take a "strong message" to the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. Barroso also criticised EU countries for counting debt relief as development aid, saying that it was a one-off measure that could lead to a substantial decrease in the bloc's overall aid spending. "Bang on the table a bit," Bono said, adding: "This is something worth being upset about, ... the goals are so achievable." But he also slammed EU countries for not living up to their aid promises, singling out France and Italy for the lowest aid payments. Promising to make more aid for poor nations a "mission for Europe," Barroso said the EU should stop navel-gazing and instead step up efforts to help improve the situation in other countries. "The EU has problems, but what are our problems compared to the problems of those who do not have enough food to eat, who do not have clean water to drink?" he said. The EU earlier this year admitted that further efforts were still needed to make the bloc's aid more predictable and sustained and to improve coordination among the 27 member states. European aid organizations have said that close to one-third of EU development assistance in 2006 did not deliver any fresh resources for poor countries. The EU has promised to substantially increase aid for the poorest nations and intends to reach the United Nations target of allocating 0.7 per cent of national income to fight extreme poverty by 2015. But recent data have shown that the only EU countries to reach the UN target were Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark.
