At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the European Union (EU) stands out as an important regional organization. This book focuses on the influence of the World Bank on the EU development cooperation policy, with special emphasis on the Lomé Convention. It explains the influence of trade liberalisation on EU trade preferences and provides a comparative analysis of the content and direction of the policies developed towards the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP), the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. It looks at the trade-related directorates and their contribution to the phenomenon referred as 'trade liberalisation'. This includes trends towards the removal or elimination of trade preferences and the ideology underlying this reflected in and created by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organisation (GATT/WTO). The book examines the role of the mass media because the media are supposed to play a unique role in encouraging political reactions to humanitarian emergencies. The bolting on to development 'policy' of other continents, and the separate existence of a badly run Humanitarian Office (ECHO), brought the lie to the Maastricht Treaty telling us that the EU really had a coherent development policy. The Third World in general, and Africa in particular, are becoming important components in the EU's efforts to develop into a significant international player. The Cotonou Agreement proposes to end the preferential trade margins accorded to non-least developed ACP states in favour of more liberal free trade agreements strongly shaped by the WTO agenda.
EUD1 10/28/03 2:38 PM Page 1 1 EU development cooperation: from model to symbol? Karin Arts and Anna K. Dickson At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the European Union (EU) stands out as an important regional organisation. It entertains formalised relations with almost all other (groups of ) states. Although much of its attention is devoted to internal integration, obviously the European Union cannot and does not wish to be an isolated entity. Instead it has expressed the desire and ambition to take up a prominent place in the working of
EUD6 10/28/03 3:14 PM Page 101 6 Changing interests in EU development cooperation: the impact of EU membership and advancing integration Karin Arts This chapter examines two main lines of developments within the European Union that have affected the geographical scope of, political priority for, and substantive orientation of, its development cooperation policy. They are, respectively, the changes in EU membership over time and the ever advancing European integration process. These two processes functioned both as incentives and as restraining factors for
in the evolution of EU development cooperation: the development of an EU approach to the support of structural adjustment programmes in the ACP states in Lomé IV; the introduction of ‘political conditionality’ into Lomé in the 1990s; and the recasting of EU development cooperation in the negotiations for the Cotonou Agreement signed in 2000. The rise of the Washington consensus: adjustment, conditionality and Lomé IV EU aid policies claimed a distinctiveness on a number of counts. Some of these related to the rhetoric which infused the signing of Lomé I and
EUD9 10/28/03 3:16 PM Page 149 9 Conclusions: the potential and limits of EU development cooperation policy Karin Arts and Anna K. Dickson On 23 June 2000 the Cotonou Agreement was signed, replacing the twentyfive-year-old Lomé Convention. There was a distinct feeling of change in Cotonou and the new Agreement is seen as radically overhauling its predecessors and setting a new basis for partnership between the ACP and EU states. It is too early to provide in-depth analysis of the Cotonou Agreement, not least because in many ways Cotonou provides a kind of
and J. B. Honwana (2000), Reflection Paper. Priorities in EU Development Cooperation in Africa: Beyond 2000, Brussels: Council of Ministers. CEC (1996), ‘Green Paper on Relations between the European Union and the ACP Countries on the Eve of the 21st Century. Challenges and Options for a New Partnership’, Brussels: CEC 14 November. Conclusions, 1995, ‘The conclusions of the Presidency. The European Summit’, Madrid, 15–16 December. Crawford, G. (1996), ‘Whither Lomé? The mid-term review and the decline of partnership’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 34:3, pp. 503
, Brussels. Coote, B. and C. LeQuesne (1996), The Trade Trap: Poverty and the Global Commodity Markets, Oxford: Oxfam. Davenport, M. (1992), ‘Africa and the unimportance of being preferred’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 30:2, pp. 233–51. Dickson, A. (1995), ‘The EC and its associates: changing priorities’, Politics, 15:3, pp. 147–52. Dickson, A. (2000), ‘Bridging the gap: great expectations for EU development cooperation policies’, Current Politics and Economics in Europe, 9:3, pp. 275–96. Edwards, G. and E. Regelsberger (eds) (1990), Europe’s Global Links, New York
The use of the expression of 'sense and sensibility' in this chapter can be understood as a reference to the construction of the European Union (EU) and as to the French behaviour towards, and its attachment to, Africa. The chapter focuses on the French impact on European Community (EC) development policy and explains how its influence evolved over time. It shows the different channels used by France to contribute to the elaboration of the European development policy. The chapter also explains the reasons for its influence. The financial influence of France on European development policy has mainly been exerted within the framework of the specific policy towards Africa and later the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The chapter presents recent changes and the decrease in France's presence and impact. Decolonisation implied a change in the association regime for the newly independent African countries.
The period of 'the association', essentially from the Rome Treaty up to the opening of the Lomé negotiations was one in which Europe, of the six, discovered through the French as intermediary the modalities of a 'cooperation policy'. The bolting on to development 'policy' of other continents, and the separate existence of a badly run Humanitarian Office (ECHO), brought the lie to the Maastricht Treaty. The Maastricht Treaty told us that the European Union (EU) really had a coherent development policy. The Lomé Convention was the Commission's high water mark in the development policy. The arrival of the British and the Danes reinforced those with a broader political agenda, and the Commission found useful allies in its efforts. In 1972, an association agreement was reached with Mauritius, whose deal with the European Economic Community (EEC) included an aid component.
This chapter analyses the European Union's (EU) relations with five broad regional groupings: the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. To explore why the EU-ACP relationship is losing its uniqueness, the chapter examines the evolution of the Union's policies towards the five regions. The chapter then explores the extent to which the Union's policies towards the five regions have evolved, and why. It begins with the ACP countries, the oldest of the EU's regional relationships. The post-Cold War foreign policy priorities of the Union have been defined as 'regional' in the sense of the European region. Politicisation really began in earnest with respect to Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War, where the EU's main aim was the support for political and economic reforms.