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03/17/2010

Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed quite proud of herself. In conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, the heads of state of European Union countries had given into the demands of developing countries and pledged new aid funds. Merkel, speaking to the press in Brussels, called it "a signal of extraordinary solidarity," and pointed out that Germany alone had pledged to hand over €1.26 billion ($1.73 billion) by 2012. These were additional funds that had not been included in previous development aid budgets, she said.

The chancellor won high praise for the commitment. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said the money Germany was pledging for environmental projects in poor countries provided "a huge encouragement." Everyone believed Merkel, who had already stuck her neck out earlier by saying: "I don't want the Europeans to be the ones who don't keep their promises."

Merkel's pledge lasted all of three months. Instead of the promised €1.26 billion, the German government now intends to pay only an additional €210 million. The remainder of the funds will be reassigned or offset.

This isn't the first time Merkel has held out the prospect of aid money and later reneged on her promises. Germany's new coalition government of Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) is abiding by even fewer of its international commitments and agreements than its predecessors, the coalition of CDU and center-left Social Democrats, did. In the international community, Germans are now seen as masters of the empty promise.

Stretching the Truth

The government is quick to highlight its commitment to a 1970 United Nations resolution, which raised the target for foreign aid assistance to 0.7 percent of a donor nation's gross domestic product. But that pledge has deteriorated into little more than an empty phrase. At the FDP's urging, a step-by-step EU plan, designed to ensure that the UN target would be reached by 2015, was not even mentioned in the Berlin coalition agreement.

Merkel isn't the first chancellor to stretch the truth with her pledges. At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Merkel's political godfather, then Chancellor Helmut Kohl, copiously invoked our "common responsibility for one world." The German government, Kohl said, intended to reach the 0.7-percent target "as soon as possible." But, as it turned out, Germany's foreign aid expenditures declined to 0.26 percent of GDP during Kohl's tenure.

Since then, there has been a radical shift in the importance of government development aid. What was seen as an indicator of morality and readiness to help others in the 1990s is now considered hard currency in international politics.

Rich countries need the poor nations to solve the global crises regarding the climate, poverty and security. But in the developing countries, "there is growing disappointment with and mistrust of industrialized countries that are not keeping their promises," says Saleemul Huq of the London International Institute for Environment and Development. And that includes Germany.

In past years, Merkel held out the prospect of enormous sums for the countries of the global south, including €4 billion to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria (2007), €500 million to protect the biodiversity (2008), €2.1 billion to fight hunger (2009) and close to €1.3 billion for climate protection (2009).

Opposition Jeers

After each new pledge, experts asked themselves where the money was going to come from. Most of the time, government officials said that current budgets would be augmented, as was the case with Berlin's commitment at the Copenhagen climate summit. "These funds will be new and supplementary, and will not be taken from other development programs, such as fighting poverty," German Development Minister Dirk Niebel said in Copenhagen.

Back in Berlin, CDU Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, with support from Niebel's ministry, tried to implement the Copenhagen pledge. But the Finance Ministry put its foot down during budget talks, and the Chancellery also withdrew its support for Röttgen.

At a key meeting about two weeks ago, the coalition's budget officials were unwilling to approve a single cent in new funding for 2010. Opposition politicians in the parliamentary budget committee immediately took the opportunity to jeer at Merkel, saying that her commitments were worthless, and that Röttgen might as well skip the Bonn climate conference in June. The minister, looking visibly uncomfortable, requested a recess.

It was only with difficulty that Röttgen managed to convince the committee to at least approve the €70 million in additional funds for the current year, instead of the promised €420 million. To come up with the rest of the money, funds that were already committed to the environmental and development budget were reallocated. Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, will decide on the budget allocations later this week.

The same trick will also be used in 2011 and 2012. Officials have already compiled detailed lists of which existing budgets in the two ministries will be tapped to come up with an additional €350 million a year. During the course of the operation, for example, the €500 million Merkel pledged in 2008 to protect biodiversity will shrink to €170 million. Based on the government's current budget planning, Germany will only fulfill one-sixth of its Copenhagen climate pledge.

'China Is Seen as a Reliable Partner'

Germany, with its budget of about €10 billion, is second only to the United States in development aid spending. But when measured against economic output, other countries often contribute far more to alleviating the adverse effects of globalization.

Of the major European countries, only Italy will spend a smaller share of its GDP on development than Germany this year, which will spend 0.4 percent. Both countries fall well short of the 0.51-percent target established under the EU's step-by-step plan. Germany also falls well behind Great Britain, Spain and France in the share of GDP (0.03 percent) it spends to fight AIDS, malaria and other diseases. As a result, the German government can be held partly responsible for the fact that by the end of the year, according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) prognosis, Africa will only have received about half of the $25 billion in aid the G-8 countries pledged in 2005. At the time Merkel, as host of the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, insisted: "Trust is the basis for cooperation with Africa."

Trust in the global north is disappearing rapidly, warns Eckhard Deutscher, chairman of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. "In Africa, China is now seen as a reliable partner."

'Spending Peanuts'

Although the industrialized countries have established a large number of international funds to pay for climate protection, most of their coffers are still more or less empty. According to calculations by the British Overseas Development Institute, Germany has not even paid a third of the moneys it pledged to contribute to seven climate funds.

The Germans are also becoming increasingly stingy when it comes to the UN. In 2008, Germany slipped to 10th place among voluntary contributors to the UN World Food Program, and to 12th place among countries contributing to the UN Development Program. "The German government is spending peanuts," says Klaus Hüfner of the German United Nations Association.

Germany's stinginess could soon take its toll. This fall, the UN will vote on a two-year seat on the Security Council. Germany is applying for the seat, as are Canada and Portugal. In the end, it will be developing countries who cast the deciding votes.