Too Effective for Europe? The UK, Norm Advocacy and the Case of EU International Cooperation

Abstract

Despite being an 'awkward partner' in the EU, Britain has significantly shaped international cooperation in it. The size of Britain's development sector and its accumulated skills have given it a strong voice in the EU, particularly in terms of aid and development cooperation. In the years before the Brexit referendum of 2016, EU development cooperation shifted towards meeting the priorities of subsequent UK governments and against competing priorities. This article traces British participation in EU norm advocacy in development cooperation. The analysis shows how politico‐administrative actors have engaged beyond inter‐state power brokering and across levels of governance to shape EU policy, especially in transnational societal networks and capacity‐building in EU institutions. The article places this case into the wider context of EU norm advocacy to show how actors seek to push EU policy towards their politico‐administrative interests and identities, and it makes suggestions about what this implies for EU–UK relations.

European Development Co‐operation via Technical Assistance: An Outside‐in Perspective

“…Meanwhile, among EU Member States and at the level of the EU institutions, this type of co‐operation is frequently referred to as public sector expertise exchange (Di Ciommo and Sergejeff, 2021; Schneider and Illan, 2020). Technical assistance occupies an important place in EU development co‐operation (Di Ciommo and Sergejeff, 2021), but, compared to its financial assistance, is less addressed in scholarly literature (for notable exceptions, see Holden, 2008; Steingass, 2020).…”

“…Works on EU external governance privilege the study of the effects of technical assistance in individual countries and/or geographic regions (Freyburg, 2012; Shyrokykh, 2017), as well as the EU's drivers to engage externally (Furness et al, 2020; Lavenex, 2015; Shyrokykh, 2021a). There are also works that contribute to our understanding of how and why EU Member States mobilize expertise to be shared with third countries (Di Ciommo and Sergejeff, 2021; Steingass, 2020).…”

The Impact of Brexit on Aid

“…1 Maintaining UK funds via EU institutions is defended by some UK policymakers and analysts as a way of perpetuating the UK's global influence. One easy way to do this would be to maintain its contributions to EU aid through extra-budgetary procedures, given that the UK has been very active in moulding EU development cooperation policy (Steingass 2019;Price 2019). However, it could also be managed through other multilateral channels, such as the World Bank or the UN system.…”

“…As the UK is one of the biggest European donors, as well as (until now) a major contributor to the EU's budget due to its high GDP, Brexit may imply a huge setback for the EU as a global donor and actor, or, at least, a strong shift in EU aid, given the UK's very active role in shaping EU development cooperation in the past decades (Steingass 2019;Price 2019).…”

The Future of EU Development Policy Post-2020

“…Development is clearly an area within which it is crucial that different actors and policy areas work in harmony with each other given the multi-faceted causes of poverty and under-development. This is complicated by the fact that development policy, like much of EU external action, is underpinned by norms (Orbie and Carbone 2016;Lightfoot and Kim 2018;Steingass 2019). The key to action thus far has been designing the most effective combination of policy tools to deploy in key theatres and sectors helping the EU become a more effective development actor (see Ehrhart and Petretto 2014: 180;Keijzer and Verschaeve 2018).…”