Shifting priorities of the EU as a development actor: context and consequences

Abstract

EU development policy conforms reliably to a stable and predictable policy-cycle between 1957 until the early 2000s. After that, we see a shift towards more explicitly frame-based outputs utilising the mechanism of policy nexuses. This article, drawing on a range of primary policy documents and key case studies, illustrates the difference between the first era by which EU development retains a stable process within the boundaries of the policy cycle and the subsequent shift to the use of 'framing' to bind a series of separate activities to the core of development policy via the use of 'policy nexuses'. The article concludes with reflections on the resulting seminal changes to the EU's overall approach to development, and its implications for the EU as a development actor.

Assessing the EU’s and Turkey’s Triangular Development Cooperation partnership in the Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Some argue that the inclusion of political and economic strings in EU’s development cooperation has resulted in an increasing politicization of EU’s partnership with Africa (Pallotti, 2018) and the instrumentalization of development policy as a means to promote a wide range of EU’s external policy areas (Hadfield & Lightfoot, 2021). In its 2018 peer-review report OECD-DAC warned that the securitization of the EU’s development cooperation funds with migration issues playing a central role in the aid allocation can lead to a dilution of the focus the EU should have on the development goals (OECD-DAC, 2018).…”

“…Nonetheless, it is essential to highlight the probability that norms could start playing a minimal role in the Post-Cotonou Agreement because given the negotiations of the post-Cotonou agreement, the Commission has proposed to the Council to move beyond the donor-recipient partnership and seek a ‘win-win’ and ‘mutual’ partnership with ACP countries (European Parliament, 2017). This seemingly shifts away from the EU aid dynamics towards a ‘beyond aid’ agenda can be explained by the increasing influence of emerging development actors like China in Africa (Carbone, 2013; Haastrup, 2021:9–13) as well as by the financial uncertainties created by Brexit and economic crisis (Hadfield & Lightfoot, 2001).…”