WRITTEN QUESTION P-0663/02 by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission. Support for East Timor.
Date: 2002-03-01
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU aid, East Timor, development aid, emergency aid, financial aid, food aid, the EU's international role, use of aid

C 28 E/40

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

6.2.2003

(2003/C 28 E/044)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0663/02

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(1 March 2002)

Subject: Support for East Timor

The LUSA news agency reported on 20 February 2002 that a Commission spokesperson has stated that:

1. over the period 1999-2002 a total of EUR 137,5 million has been allocated to East Timor from the

Community budget;

2.

this sum is considerably larger in per capita terms than those received by other Asian countries such
as India;

3.

the Commission intends to reduce the total committed to East Timor to EUR 7 million.

Meanwhile, a recent World Bank report states that between 1999 and June 2001 East Timor received a
total of US$ 118 million from the international community taken as a whole; of this sum, only US$ 15,9
came from the EU, which thus appeared as the least generous of the various donors.

It would thus have to be concluded from the Commission’s statement that EU payments to East Timor
totalled approximately US$ 103 million in just seven months, whereas they had amounted to only
US$ 15,9 million in the previous eighteen months.

Can the Commission supply a properly grounded budgetary justification of its statement?

Is the Commission not effectively misleading the public by comparing the per capita amount allocated in
Community support to India, a country with a billion inhabitants which is the world’s largest democracy
and has been independent for decades, with that allocated to a small island state which is only now
embarking on an independent existence?

Can the Commission provide another example of a proposal on its part to reduce the total committed
under a budget heading by 75 %, as it has done for East Timor?

(2003/C 28 E/045)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0672/02

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(8 March 2002)

Subject: Assistance for East Timor

Further to his earlier priority written question P-0663/02 (1), the author of the present question wishes to
know whether the Commission has taken account in its proposal of the conclusions of the East Timor
Donors’ Conference held in December 2001 concerning that country’s assistance requirements for the
three years immediately following on independence.

Does the Commission not consider that its publicisation of its budgetary proposals in the press long before
it forwarded them to Parliament amounts to a lack of respect for the budgetary authority?

(1) See page 40.

Joint answer
to Written Questions P-0663/02 and E-0672/02
given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(3 April 2002)

The Commission is grateful for the opportunity to clarify the situation concerning EC assistance to East
Timor, particularly in the light of press reports (cid:1) not stimulated by the Commission (cid:1) which have been
at times misleading. Between August 1999 and the end of 2002, the Commission has indeed allocated
over EUR 137,5 million of grant aid to help East Timor. Over EUR 51 million of emergency and food aid