The 12 new member states of the European Union (EU) donated around half a billion euro in 2006 towards assisting global development, the Bulgarian office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on October 16, as quoted by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).

The EU newcomers pledged to increase their contribution to the economic and social development on a global scale to one billion euro. The sum would require them to spend 0.17 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP), said Maya Nyagolova, communications and advocacy specialist with UNDP Bulgaria said, as quoted by BNR, during a discussion on Bulgaria’s Millennium Development Goals debate.

Among the organisation's millennium priorities she outlined “cutting the number of extremely poor to the half of its current figure by 2010, improving primary and secondary education, encouraging the equality between sexes and decreasing the child mortality rate”.

Presently, Bulgaria sets aside just 0.08 per cent of its GDP for assisting global development programmes, Bulgarian MEP Atanas Paparizov said. Last year, the 15 old members of the EU set themselves the goal to have 0.33 per cent of their GDP spent on developing countries. The EU as a whole currently provided at least 50 per cent of all the global developing assistance, he said.

Bulgaria had the opportunity to support the progress of the Middle East and Africa through technical help. Meanwhile, Bulgarian doctors and teacher could prove themselves useful in those states, where their expertise has been known since before 1990, said Paparizov.