Last Updated : 22 November 2012 at 14:35 IST
If you are rich, then you are screwed for you have to give it away to the poor! But, if you are poor, then you will know that your hands are often emptied just to make it full, so that you get yet another chance to help the other poor people around you.
“We are benefiting from [EU funds], it is our Marshall Plan,” Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, told the FT regaring cohesion funds. “But we think this will be the last [budget period] in which we will be net beneficiaries. After that we will be happy to contribute to lift up those even poorer than ourselves.”
To put things in perspective:
The European Union budget summit is about to begin in Brusseles to fine tune the aspects of seven year budget: 2013-2020. At stake are 973bn euros (£782.5bn; $1,245bn). “The Van Rompuy plan envisages 309.5bn euros for cohesion (32% of total spending) and 364.5bn euros for agriculture (37.5%).” BBC reports.
The bone of contention is the cohesion funds: the infrastructure allocation for the nations which are backward in infrastructure front.
Countries like Poland and Slovenia have been the beneficiaries of cohesion funds footed mainly by Germany, France, UK and the like.
The rich (aka Friends of Better Spending ) given the austerity drive that has swept across Europe wants to cut expenditure towards cohesion funds even as the poor--Friends of Cohesion--wants the rich to continue with allocations.
But the leaders of rich nations, in an endeavour to cut back on spending to salvage political scathing back home, are missing on four points:
--The funds which are allocated to the nations in terms of cohesion spending in turn gets diverted to rich countries in form of building contracts and other allocations boosting jobs and demand for raw materials.
--The funding helps to improve on a long-term basis, the economies of the fund recepients, creating new markets for rich nations.
--The goodwill generated amongst the citizens of countries like Poland as funds start to pour in from nations like Germany and UK; it would help assuage historical grievances and help begin new chapters in nation-to-nation bonding.
--The possibility of evading a Chinese encroaching to Europe: the infrastructure in all nations would find one or the other way to develop, if not of aid from neigbours, then from far flung places. And mind you, China has a development model in Africa: resources for infrastructure.
The Chinese have been building infrastructure projects for natural resources in many a African nation. They just have to write a new equation here; it could be composed of anything from technology to finance: any of those traditional strongholds of Europe in exchange of infrastructure.
“Officials warn failure to agree on a budget next week could poison the atmosphere at a vital December summit devoted to the eurozone, and delay any budget deal for months to come. That, in turn, could throw into uncertainty billions of euros of development spending.” the Finacial Times said.
Heed it or regret it!
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