Security now dominates the leaders' agenda, not the ending of world poverty, writes Justin Kilcullen.
These are not encouraging times for those working in the area of development and humanitarian aid. Repression continues in Burma and Zimbabwe, genocide threatens the Congo and chronic food shortages are crippling much of Africa.
The world's leaders meet and seem to care little about these and other vital issues. The predominant thinking is about our own security, the curtailing of the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the safeguarding of our own markets.
The once promised "coalition against poverty" is long forgotten.
While we might think this is just a passing phase, unfortunately such narrow self-centred thinking is also dominating the process of the Convention for Europe. There is a real danger that this euro-centricity will be copper-fastened in the constitution that will eventually be agreed. Europe's relations with the developing countries has been seen in the commitment to poverty eradication spelt out in the Maastricht Treaty. It was also seen in its progressive position at the UN Millennium Summit which adopted development goals that included halving world poverty by 2015. More recently at Barcelona, in Monterrey 2002, the EU committed itself to raise the corrective level of aid to reach 0.39 per cent of GNP by 2006.
However, what is emerging in the documents emanating from the convention is that all of this will be subsumed within the greater emphasis on security and defence in external relations.
The fact that the leaders of the four most powerful EU members - Germany, France, UK and Italy - participate in the G8 meetings might well reflect a prioritising of our own security over the economic and social security of the wider world. That these two aspects of security might somehow be related seems to escape our leaders, despite statements in the early days of the war against terrorism which seemed to recognise these links.
In adopting the common foreign and security policy approach, it is now proposed to have one EU directorate with responsibility for all external affairs including commerce, defence and development. The principles that have long underpinned humanitarian aid are under threat from such an integrationist approach.
There is now a distinct threat that urgently needed development funds will be used as an instrument to support post-war crisis in Iraq. Indeed, the Iraq situation highlights the issue of aid being used as an instrument of appeasement in a post-conflict situation. The failure to deliver an adequate aid programme is seen as central to the continual instability in Iraq.
It is no consolation to think that next time the aid programmes will be far more efficient having been planned within the overall strategy from the beginning.
If the proposed constitution for Europe is not to become a travesty that will blight relations between Europe and the developing world, then action must be taken quickly to row back these damaging proposals. Ireland's delegates to the convention have shown themselves to be open to persuasion on these issues and some advances have been achieved.
But as the process heads towards the inter-governmental conference that will be conducted largely during Ireland's upcoming presidency of the EU, then we can play a critical role in ensuring that EU aid remains focused on eradicating poverty, and equally importantly, that all EU external policies cohere with this fundamental objective.
Ireland's commitment to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP in development assistance and our commitment to the millennium development goals position us well to lead the debate on these critical issues.
Both the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, need to recommit themselves and the Government to this process. After all, the stakes in this debate are very high for the world's poorest people.
The EU is already the largest trading block in the world, the biggest donor of official aid, the key source of foreign investment and a major player in agenda-setting in the international financial institutions.
The emergence of an introspective Europe concerned predominately with its own security will directly impact on the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people far beyond Europe's borders. Will Europe keep its promises made over the past decade?
We must ensure that it does.
Justin Kilcullen is director of Trócaire and vice-president of Concord, a European Confederation representing 1,200 NGOs across the European Union.