The Fantasy: How They See Themselves

Staged PR photo, issued by the European Commission

Essencially, the European Commission took credit for aid given by member states, whether it had anything to do with the Commission or not. But as always, the smug must find something over which to scratch their chins in concern:

"We just recently had figures from a study which we commissioned talking about the cost of non-Europe – bad coordination among donors, bad coordination of our rules. The cost of not having Europe is quite amazing, horrifying according to the initial figures of that study," commissioner Michel said.

In other words, they were guilty of not being European in some way. Besides, this whole “meeting and exceeding of targets” dog and pony show is old hat.

Aid output, that new measure of individual virtue – which is to say taking making an involuntary act of ‘donation’ out of the taxpayers’ money – has dropped.

Could they care less? Yes. They care less. Especially when all your selfless acts are forced on you.

The EU claims it has already met its 2006 target but today's report, which was compiled by more than 1,800 NGOs across Europe, argues that once inflated aid is taken away, genuine aid actually fell far short of the target, only reaching 0.31 per cent. If the current trend continues poor countries will have received €50bn (£34bn) less from Europe by 2010 than they have been promised.

Four countries, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy, failed to even reach their promised 2006 targets in the first place. Italy remained the smallest contributor of foreign aid in Europe despite being a G8 member.

As if that what the G8 was even for to begin with.