Eradicating hunger should become top priority

25.11.2014 11:04

Eradicating hunger should become top priority

By adopting the Stier Report on ‘The EU and the Global Development Framework after 2015’ today, the European Parliament has strongly called on the EU to confirm its lead in global development policies by taking a unified position at the December Council and to make significant progress in the path of eradicating poverty.

"Despite the achievements of the Millennium Goals so far, the world is still facing a ‘hunger scandal’. 1.5 billion people in the world are hungry. This is indeed scandalous, as pointed out by Pope Francis at today’s plenary session, as there is enough food in the world for everyone but not enough justice for everyone", said Davor Ivo Stier.

The Global Development Framework after 2015 will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2000 to fight world poverty through development. The EU is the largest donor of development aid. In 2013, the EU committed almost €15 billion to external development assistance. Low income and the least developed countries were the main recipients.

"A strong, cohesive and unified EU position is needed in the upcoming inter-governmental negotiations taking into account the European Parliament’s priorities before the EU Council conclusions of December 2014 which will set out a coherent set of principles and the main lines of the negotiating strategy for the EU", reiterated Stier.

With this Report, the European Parliament wants to contribute to the definition of a coherent, unified and consistent EU position.

"In contrast to the Millennium Goals which were targeted at development countries, our wish is that the new Global Development Framework sets the goals for countries all over the world, including the EU Member States. In this Resolution, we underline this principle of universality together with the need that the EU adjusts all its external and internal policies to the new goals for sustainable development which will be adopted at the UN summit in September 2015", concluded Stier.

Note to editors

The EPP Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament with 219 Members from 27 Member States

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