No other major EU nations hit target

BRITAIN is the only major EU country to have fulfilled a pledge to raise foreign aid spending, it was revealed yesterday.

Germany is paying about 0.4 per cent of its income in aid, despite the UN’s 0.7 per cent target, endorsed by the EU.

Britain has raised aid spending by nearly 50 per cent over the past five years to achieve this target. Aid spending went up from 0.57 per cent of gross national income in 2010 to 0.71 per cent in 2013, remaining at the same level last year.

But the German aid contribution has crept up by less than half a percentage point of its income over the past decade, the EU report said.

The share of income given in aid by France has fallen by more than a quarter in five years and is now well under 0.4 per cent.

Former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth, MP for Aldershot, said: ‘The Germans are accusing us of not taking our fair share of migrants and asylum seekers. Yet they are not pulling their weight when it comes to overseas aid.’