Application article:

L’aide de l’UE, une prime à la démocratie

English summary: What is wealth? It is not only food or education. Democracy and respect for human rights are also a groundwork on which healthy development can bloom. To achieve that goal, the European Union launched in 2007 an instrument for the promotion of democracy and human rights in the world. With a budget of 1.104 billion euros, it will continue until 2013. One of the latest actions of that development policy was the decision to financially support the 2011 electoral process in the Central African Republic. The EU is granting the country €9.5 million, since “presidential and legislative elections which are well prepared, free and credible constitute an essential condition for the peace building process,” explained Andris Piebalgs, Commissioner for Development. But money is nothing without action. Should the EU finance countries that take no steps toward good governance? Human Rights Watch, in a report published in October, uses the example of Ethiopia to criticise the lack of control from the EU concerning the way that aid money is used. According to the report, Ethiopian government workers are using aid to reward and punish their political allies and opponents…