The eclipse of European Development Policy

The future of the European Development policy may be decided by the European Council when it meets in Seville next week. Council reform proposals being prepared by the Spanish Presidency of the EU and Javier Solana as Secretary General of the Council would abolish the Development Council if adopted by the European Summit. Presented as a technical reform in the functioning of the Council, the proposal seeks to reduce the number of separate Council formations from the current 16 to 10.

At its meeting in Bern on 7 June the General Assembly of Eurostep adopted a statement calling on the European Council to defer any decision on the proposed reforms. “Any decision taken at this stage which would dissolve the Development Council will pre-empt the outcome of the European Convention” declared Folke Sundman, the President of Eurostep and Director of Finnish NGO Kepa.

“Abolishing the Development Council as a separate and identifiable entity within the Council structure will have profound political consequences for the EU’s development policy. It would surely signal that the EU’s development policy, and the € 9 billion annual aid budget, will become a tool of the Common Foreign and Security Policy” said Eurostep’s Director, Simon Stocker. “This decision is anything but a technical reform of the Council.”

In its statement Eurostep says that “as a Global Player the EU has Global responsibilities. These can only be fulfilled with a strong and separately identified development policy with the mechanisms within each of the EU’s institutions to transform this policy into practice.”

Eurostep wants to see a full and open debate on the future external role of the European Union, and on the place for development policy and its objectives. “The EU’s role in the world is central to the European Convention” says Simon Stocker. “It would be utterly wrong for the EU’s government leaders to stop this debate before it begins. To do so would be in total disregard for the debate on the Future of Europe that they launched only six months ago. And it would certainly question their sincerity to engage with the people of Europe.”

The statement of Eurostep’s general Assembly can be found at www.eurostep.org/pubs/position/convention/Sd20023.htm.

For information on Eurostep’s position towards the European Convention go to www.eurostep.org/pubs/position/coherence/Con2010.htm.

For more information contact Simon Stocker at +32 2 231 16 59; or +32 479 489147