WRITTEN QUESTION E-3150/00

by Olle Schmidt (ELDR) to the Commission

(6 October 2000)

Subject: EU funding to combat child sex tourism

The Commission has repeatedly stated that action to combat child sex tourism is an important issue. The Swedish section of ECPAT, the international organisation that works to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children, received funding from the Commission for the period November 1999 to October 2000 to enable it to draw up, along with the travel industry, a code of conduct to help combat child sex tourism. The funding officially ends in October, but Commissioner Erkki Liikanen wrote in April 2000 that there were high expectations for the project, so that ECPAT assumed it would continue to receive financial support for its project. In his letter, Commissioner Liikanen also stated that the Commission would continue to give priority to measures designed to combat child sex tourism. Throughout the summer, ECPAT tried to contact the Commission, albeit without success, to get confirmation that funding would continue. On 5 September, however, ECPAT was told that its funding was to be discontinued.

Will the Commission therefore state:

1. How, and on the basis of what long-term plans, it prioritises the projects to be supported?

2. What contact it has had with the organisations during the current project?

3. How NGOs, which are often dependent on grants, are to be able to plan and carry out their activities if it takes decisions on whether or not to continue funding at short notice (in this case, it took a decision in September concerning a funding period due to start in November)?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(21 November 2000)

1. In spring and summer 2000 the Commission carried out a global review of its activities and human resources. On 26 July 2000 the Commission concluded that it was more than 1200 posts short of being able to manage all its tasks.

In the past there has been a tendency for executive tasks of the Commission to increase, and political and legislative tasks to decrease. In July, the Commission decided to reverse this trend, and reduce its executive tasks in order to have sufficient human resources for political, legislative and conceptual tasks. For a wide range of sectors this means reduction and phasing out activities. In particular, activities financed by small budget lines will be reduced because they are very intensive in terms of human resources.

The information and awareness raising campaigns against sex tourism have had their important role to play. However, in the context of lack of resources and in line with the general trend of cutting small budget lines, these activities will be phased out. The Commission will not make new financing commitments next year. Nevertheless, the Commission will do its best to use appropriations for these activities in this year's budget.

2. In this case, besides the few contacts the Commission had with ECPAT according to the rules in the framework of the call for proposals published in May 1999, such as for example the examination of the interim report, ECPAT requested on 7 October 2000 an extension of the project duration until 31 December 2000. The Commission accepted this extension. Furthermore, an ECPAT representative attended a meeting on 10 October 2000, during which the Commission explained to interested organisations the possibilities of further Community assistance for activities to combat child sex tourism.

Beneficiaries of Community grants implement the corresponding projects without further assistance by the Commission. During the implementation, contacts between the beneficiaries and the Commission may be established according to specific needs. The beneficiaries are usually bound to produce regular reports about the progress achieved and the results.

3. The annual nature of the Community budget only allows financial commitments on a yearly basis, with relatively short notice. Good management of the Community's scarce resources requires careful selection of activities to be supported. This does not allow any financing to be guaranteed before the relevant procedures have been concluded.