Mr President, Commissioner, it is fair that I begin my speech on behalf of the Group by congratulating Mrs Kinnock on her excellent report and on the passion with which she is defending it. I believe that the proposals in this report, together with the resolution which we approved at the last part-session in July, represent the best contribution this Parliament could have made to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, because there is no question, unfortunately, that education is still the great unresolved issue within development cooperation, despite the formal declarations and the commitments given at the various international conferences which have addressed this issue. The figures on the millions of children not attending school, which Mrs Kinnock pointed out, speak for themselves in this respect. While it is a grave situation that so many children are being deprived of their fundamental right to education, it is even more grave that, as a result of the violation of this right, millions of people are immersed in poverty and under-development. Because the key to prosperity and progress, especially in the context of the information and communication society which we live in today, lies in the level of education the people have access to. The conviction that, by not dealing vigorously with the issue of education in the developing countries, we will not only fail to eradicate poverty, but that the gap between the rich and poor countries will increase, has certainly led us to place education at the centre of the global strategy for eradicating poverty. In this respect, we have to recognise that the Dakar Conference on education for all represented a great step forward, but it is a step which will take us nowhere if action is not taken and if, in accordance with the decisions at Dakar, we do not quickly adopt a concrete world initiative directed towards creating strategies and mobilising the resources required to provide effective support for the efforts made on a national level – as one of the Dakar commitments states. The European Union, as the main donor and insofar as it has made solidarity and the defence of human rights an essential dimension of its international action, has the responsibility to promote these strategies in close coordination with the other donors, including the Monetary Fund and the World Bank and with the participation of civil society and, with them, policies aimed at overcoming the obstacles which deny children access to a quality education. And the European Union has the moral and political obligation to provide the financial resources necessary to achieve free education for all between now and 2015. All of this can be done in accordance with the excellent proposals contained in the Kinnock report, which reflect both the practically unanimous feelings of the Committee on Development and the feelings of my group. However, achieving this objective will also require us to urgently either cancel or restructure the debts of the developing countries in exchange for the funds made available as a result being directed to education programmes. It will require making the developing countries themselves responsible and encouraging them, through persuasive measures if necessary, to fulfil the commitments given in Dakar and to give absolute priority to education. Above all, it will require an increase in financial contributions and the allocation of at least 8% of official aid to development and to basic education, in line with the views of the people promoting the campaign for education for all. Only through resources which match the challenge we have to face will it be possible to win the battle against illiteracy in the world. I will end by saying that only in this way will it be possible for millions of children to exercise their fundamental right to education, an education which will allow them to open the doors to progress and one day become free men and women.

Political group: PPE-DE