Dear Secretary of State

Rt. Hon Jack Straw MP

Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

London SW1A 2AH

15 November 2005

Dear Secretary of State,

I am writing to you ahead of the General Affairs and External Relations Council on 21-22 November 2005, to set out our concerns on some of the agenda items for this meeting. This letter highlights the major points that we would like you to raise, while the attached bullet points go into more detail.

We would like to underline the importance of keeping poverty eradication at the heart of EU development policy, and of ensuring that other EU policies, particularly trade and agriculture, are coherent with that. Both the UK Government and the EU have asserted the EU’s responsibility to lead an advance in eradicating poverty.

Specifically, poverty eradication and the needs of developing countries must be the objective for the new European Union Development Policy Declaration. This objective should be applied and implemented consistently across all regulations and instruments covering developing countries which feature on the OECD DAC List 1, and all parts of EU development policy. A genuine and convincing European Community commitment to poverty eradication requires that the Declaration clearly give primacy to factors of need in a single set of allocation criteria applicable to developing countries. Furthermore, according to the report on the public consultation on EU development policy, “Development money should not be used to resolve migration issues nor be contingent on migration policy.” Allocating funds to countries of transit and origin for migration control purposes does not contribute at all to solving the root causes of poverty and inequality, and therefore should not be considered as development aid.

2005 has brought a unique focus of world attention on African development. It has been perceived as a brief window of opportunity to introduce policies that bring about real change. With the EU-Africa Strategy, the European Commission is recognising that a renewed focus on Africa is required and we commend that. However, the new EU-Africa Strategy must be based on the needs of African countries and it must build on analysis and evidence of what has worked in the EU approach to date. The strategy also needs more clarity about where funding for its activities will come from and how it will coordinate with other EU activities concerning the countries involved.

The EU’s negotiating stance in World Trade Organisation discussions must also support and not undermine poverty eradication. The UK Government has made many encouraging statements about the need to stop forcing liberalisation on developing countries, and for a deadline of 2010 ending export subsidies, as recommended by the Commission for Africa. Building on the speech given by the Prime Minister on 14 November 2005, the UK should now make a clear public statement in relation to the WTO negotiations, showing it is actively pushing the EU to alter its aggressively liberalising stance.

We hope you will raise these with your colleagues. We wish you a successful Council meeting and look forward to hearing the outcome.

Best wishes,

Richard Bennett,

General Secretary of BOND

Chair of MakePovertyHistory

cc:Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development