Feb 21st 2008 - Joint Debate,- Cohesion, Territorial Agenda & the Leipzig Charter

Delivered by Derek Clark on 21 February 2008

Speech to Parliament Strasbourg Feb 21st 2008 Joint Debate,- Cohesion, Territorial Agenda & the Leipzig Charter These reports comment on the disparity between the rural and urban economies, between rich and poor, especially in Eastern Europe, between the disadvantaged and the rest of society.

The answer, apparently, is to offer a vast catalogue, including Cultural, Economic, Technical developments and of Social Engineering provision. It notes the success of such programs in Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece to relieve these inequalities and encourages similar strategies, frameworks and action programs to generate progress in affected regions, especially in Eastern Europe.

Above all it mentions Cohesion Funds, we get to the nub; 65 billion euros on such programs in needy western countries in the last few years, but Eastern Europe is much poorer than Ireland and Spain ever were. So these subsidies, for that is what they are, will be taken from those countries still receiving them and from an ever smaller pot as the chill economic winds reach us from the USA.

Unfortunately for all its citizens, the well off and the poor alike, these subsidies are self-defeating for they strip initiative away from people and produce a culture of dependency.

If you really want to help listen to professor Buchanan of the London School of Economics. His paper states that, to help a poor country, trade is worth six times more than aid. Will you learn that? Or put it another way. If, in a poor country, you give a starving man a fish you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for life.

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg Feb21st 2008