The eclipse of EU development policy

Next month the European Council will consider abolishing the Development Council.   This proposal, which has not yet been formalised, will be presented as a technical rationalisation to the working structures of the Council.  Yet it has significant political implications for the role of the European Union’s development policies and practices. Since the result will be that decisions on development policy issues will be taken in view of  foreign political policy, development will become increasingly subordinate to the foreign political interests of the European Union.

This is already happening within the Commission.  The expected dissolution of the Commission's Development Directorate next year, with the integration of its functions within EuropeAid, will result in External Relations assuming responsibility for development policy. In reality development will become integrated into the external political policy framework of the Commission, and its implementation will inevitably be determined by the European Union's external political interests.

This week will see the Development Ministers being asked to endorse this process.  The Secretary General of the Council will informally outline these proposals during the meeting of the Development Council on 30 May, to clear the way for a formal proposal to be presented to the European Union’s meeting of Heads of State and Government on 21 and 22 June in Spain.

These “technical” reforms are being made at the very moment that the debate on the future of Europe is taking place.  A key aspect of this debate, being taken forward by the European Convention, is to involve and engage European citizens. The role of the European Union beyond its borders – its role and responsibility – is a crucial element of this debate.  Yet the reforms are effectively pre-empting the outcome.

If the European Council accepts this proposal for reform in Seville next month the Danish presidency will host the last meeting of the Development Council in November.  The existence of the European Parliament’s Development and Co-operation Committee will be threatened.  And the places within the Commission, Council and Parliament with specific mandates to focus on development policy and its implementation will disappear.  In their place the development agenda of the European Union will be determined by institutional structures whose principal responsibility will not be the interests of development for people living in developing countries, but the projection of the European Union’s own internal interests in its external actions.

If the commitment of Europe’s political leaders to have a genuine and open debate about the future of Europe has any credibility, then any proposals on the reform of the Council must wait until these have been allowed to take place.