Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

▸6 unchanged paragraphs

on financing for development – ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville

(2025/2004(INI))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to UN General Assembly Resolution 70/1 of 25 September 2015 entitled ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York and establishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),

– having regard to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development held in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015,

– having regard to the Paris Agreement of 12 December 2015, adopted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,

Removed– having regard to the report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of 10 November 2022 entitled ‘Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2023: No Sustainability Without Equity’,

Added– having regard to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) of 13 September 2007,

Added– having regard to the document of the United National Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) of January 2012 entitled ‘Principles on Promoting Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing’,

Added– having regard to the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC),

Added– having regard to the UN General Assembly Resolution 68/304 of 9 September 2014 entitled ‘Towards the Establishment of a Multilateral Legal Framework for Sovereign Debt Restructuring Processes’,

Added– having regard to the UN General Assembly Resolution of 10 September 2015 on the ‘Basic Principles on Sovereign Debt Restructuring Processes’,

Added– having regard to the report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of 10 November 2022 entitled ‘Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2023: No Sustainability Without Equity’,

– having regard to the report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of 5 September 2024 entitled ‘Multilateral Development Finance 2024’,

– having regard to the UN Secretary-General’s SDG stimulus to deliver Agenda 2030 of February 2023,

– having regard to UN General Assembly Resolution 79/1 of 22 September 2024 entitled ‘The Pact for the Future’, adopted at the Summit of the Future in New York,

Added– having regard to the partnership agreement between the EU and its Member States, of the one part, and the Members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, of the other part (the Samoa Agreement),

– having regard to the joint statement by the Council and the representatives of the governments of the Member States meeting within the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission of 30 June 2017 entitled ‘The new European consensus on development: Our world, our dignity, our future’,

– having regard to the Council conclusions of 10 June 2021 on enhancing the European financial architecture for development,

Added– having regard to its resolution of 17 April 2018 on enhancing developing countries’* debt sustainability,

– having regard to its resolution of 24 November 2022 on the future European Financial Architecture for Development,

Added– having regard to its resolution of 14 March 2023 on Policy Coherence for Development,

– having regard to its resolution of 15 June 2023 on the implementation and delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals,

Added– having regard to the EU Gender Action Plan (GAP III),

Added– having regard to the Youth Action Plan (YAP) in European Union external action for 2022-2027,

▸4 unchanged paragraphs

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/947 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 June 2021 establishing the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe, amending and repealing Decision No 466/2014/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Regulation (EU) 2017/1601 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 480/2009,

– having regard to the Climate Bank Roadmap of the European Investment Bank (EIB) of 14 December 2020,

– having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 1 December 2021 entitled ‘The Global Gateway’ (JOIN(2021)0030),

– having regard to Rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure,

Changed– having regard to the report of the Committee on Development (A10-0000/2025),(A10-0101/2025),

Change 1

RemovedA. whereas mobilising even a small fraction of global wealth for sustainable development remains difficult, with UN Trade and Development estimating that the annual SDG financing gap in developing countries has increased to USD 4–4.3 trillion;

AddedA. whereas Article 208 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), dictates the reduction, and in the long-term eradication, of poverty as the primary objective of the EU’s development cooperation; whereas Article 21(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) reaffirms its commitment to supporting human rights, preserving peace and preventing conflict, assisting populations, countries and regions confronting natural or man-made disasters, and to the sustainable management of global natural resources;

RemovedB. whereas developing countries face significantly higher borrowing costs, further exacerbating the finance divide;

AddedB. whereas Article 18(4) TEU calls on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to ensure the consistency of the Union’s external action;

RemovedC. whereas more than half of low-income countries in the world are currently either in debt distress or at high risk thereof;

AddedC. whereas, at this critical juncture, with just five years remaining before we reach the 2030 target date for the SDGs, the increasing number of crises worldwide, the rise in extreme poverty and hunger, and the increasingly frequent and severe consequences of climate change have meant that, according to the 2024 UN SDG Report, only 17 % of the Sustainable Development Goals are currently on track to be achieved by 2030, despite progress in certain areas; whereas developing countries’* domestic revenue mobilisation remained low, due, among other factors, to illicit financial flows and also often corruption, causing crucial resources to be diverted from healthcare, education, and infrastructure development;

RemovedD. whereas the structure of creditors is changing and becoming more complex, with private creditors and new bilateral creditors outside the Paris Club playing a much larger role;

AddedD. whereas more than 700 million people worldwide are living in extreme poverty, a figure that keeps increasing; whereas poverty disproportionately affects women and girls globally, and the gender-poverty gap persists to this day; whereas the wealth gap and inequality within and between countries is widening, hindering sustainable development;

RemovedE. whereas the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 presents a critical opportunity to reform the global financial architecture;

AddedE. whereas mobilising even a small fraction of global wealth for sustainable development remains difficult, with UN Trade and Development estimating that the annual SDG financing gap in developing countries* has increased to USD 4–4.3 trillion, representing a more than 50 % increase over pre-pandemic estimates and requiring an unprecedented mobilisation of financial resources, both public and private, at the global level, especially to tackle the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and rising inequalities;

RemovedF. whereas the current international financial architecture is based on the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1944, which represents an architecture that today is no longer capable of meeting the needs of the 21st century multipolar world;

AddedF. whereas food insecurity has significantly risen as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as due to the impact of other armed conflicts and is therefore a barrier of achieving the SDGs; whereas EU cooperation needs to tackle the challenge of food security effectively with partner countries in a sustainable manner;

RemovedG. whereas globalisation, the increased prevalence and size of multinational enterprises and changes in business models have enabled base erosion and profit shifting on a significant scale; whereas international tax cooperation and rules are still insufficient to address these challenges;

AddedG. whereas leading global donors in development cooperation are abandoning their commitments to finance sustainable development;

RemovedH. whereas illicit financial flows out of developing countries and corruption remain a very significant problem;

AddedH. whereas it is estimated that, if Member States had met the commitment to devote 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to official development assistance (ODA) since 1970, more than EUR 1.2 trillion could have been allocated for development cooperation, a figure that is likely even to be much higher when taking into account the remainder of donor countries worldwide;

RemovedI. whereas the EIB, through its development arm EIB Global, has committed to increasing the impact of international partnerships and development finance outside the European Union;

AddedI. whereas developing countries* face significantly higher borrowing costs, paying on average twice as much interest on their total sovereign debt stock compared to developed (higher income) countries, due to imbalanced global financial structures, but also due to the rating of country-specific risk factors, governance challenges or macroeconomic instability, which further exacerbates the finance divide;

RemovedJ. whereas the EIB expanded its regional presence, including by opening new regional representation offices, such as the one in Jakarta, Indonesia, to strengthen engagement in southeast Asia and the Pacific;

AddedJ. whereas, according to the latest data, almost two-thirds of low-income countries in the world are currently either in debt distress or at high risk thereof, with over 100 countries struggling due to the combination of debt and interest; whereas low-income countries (LICs) spent nearly 20 % of government revenues on servicing external debt in 2023, up fourfold since 2013; whereas debt spending in over three-quarters of low income countries is several times the spending on public goods such as education, health, social protection, or climate change, thus creating one of the most important obstacles for global south countries to advance the SDGs;

RemovedK. whereas the EIB, through EIB Global, is committed to sustainable development, climate action and innovative investments in developing countries;

AddedK. whereas if indebted countries are also hit by a catastrophic external shock, such as a natural disaster, they often resort to further borrowing to pay for the reconstruction and recovery costs;

RemovedL. whereas in 2023 only five countries worldwide met or exceeded the United Nations’ target of spending 0.7 % of their national wealth on official development assistance (ODA); whereas the successful mobilisation of further capital, both private and public, in addition to ODA and other existing forms of development finance, is critical;

AddedL. whereas developing countries* in debt distress are projected to face annual debt servicing costs of USD 40 billion between 2023 and 2025, severely constraining their fiscal space for essential public investments;

AddedM. whereas achieving sustainable development requires more than just curbing debt solutions and securing external finance, it also involves strengthening the economic self-sufficiency of developing countries*, including through enhanced domestic resource mobilisation, qualitative investment-friendly policies, favouring the promotion of local entrepreneurship and local private sector growth;

AddedN. whereas a fifth of the world’s population lives in countries with high levels of inequality and, according to data from 2023, the richest 1 % of the world owns 47.5 % of all global wealth, and the effective tax rates on the richest 1 % are often lower than the tax rates for the rest of the population;

AddedO. whereas Climate Resilient Debt Clauses (CRDC) are clauses that can be added to loan or bond contracts and that are triggered by certain specified external catastrophic events, notably climate-related events, which allow the borrower to temporarily suspend debt payments;

AddedP. whereas the structure of creditors is changing and becoming more complex, with private creditors and new bilateral creditors outside the Paris Club playing a much larger role; whereas China, in particular, issues loans under opaque conditions, which is why stronger international regulation and disclosure of this debt is necessary;

AddedQ. whereas the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 presents a critical moment for the necessary reform of the global financial architecture and for addressing the growing financing challenges;