Aid from 27 members of the EU dropped 1.5 per cent in 2011, the anti-poverty group ONE reports. Fourteen EU members cut back on foreign commitments as they battled budget deficits at home, Reuters reports. “Huge cuts in aid from Greece and Spain are not unexpected in this time of turmoil, but the poor record further across the board is worrying,” Adrian Lovett, ONE’s executive director for Europe, told the news agency.
With Greek PM Antonis Samaras recovering from eye surgery and the finance minister also down for the count, foreign minister Dimitris Avramopoulos will be dispatched to the EU summit later this week. There the debt-laden country can expect to be interrogated about its 130 billion-euro rescue package. As Bloomberg Businessweek reports, “Samaras’s government plans to push creditors to extend fiscal deadlines under the country’s bailout program by at least two years, according to a policy document drawn up by the three parties and released on June 23.”
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Greece on the weekend that they need to help themselves. “The ball is now in Greece’s court,” he said in a published interview. “It’s in their hands to win back the confidence of the people of Europe. They’re only going to accomplish that with concrete actions and deeds.”