Suchergebnisse

While the European Community has exclusive competence for trade policy, the competence over development policy is shared with member states of the European Union (EU).Given that trade is communitarised, it could be assumed that it is a strong instrument for the EU that can be well used for development. Trade is a particularly prominent feature of the EU's relations to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of developing countries, and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) are the envisaged new trade pillar of ACP-EU-cooperation. This study analyses the development relevance of the EU's trade policy towards the ACP countries as formulated in the EPA, with a view to drawing conclusions on how to strengthen the trade development nexus. It specifically assesses the way in which the EU as a multilevel system has operated in the EPA negotiations. It is notably argued that the EU system needs to be more flexible to respond to issues of development concern in the trade negotiations, e.g. market access and support measures for ACP states. Efforts are furthermore required to improve the coordination of European policy-making on trade and development. Both the EU's communitarian and bilateral policies will need to engage in a more complementary fashion to support productive and trading capacities in the ACP and developing countries.

Many of the central issues faced by EU Foreign Policy - such as state fragility, illegal migration and environmental degradation - are challenges of global development. For European policymakers the increasing importance of development as an external relations priority will demand the refinement of existing instruments and the testing of new approaches. This book addresses debates on how the EU manages various modes of governance in development policymaking, its engagement with other global actors and the effectiveness of its policy formulation and implementation. Given the restrictions of policymaking in an environment characterised by uncertainty, difficulty and complexity, the contributions to this volume explore decision-making and implementation across a wide range of issue-areas with the objective of highlighting choices that could improve the coherence, and thus the effectiveness, of European policy for global development.

Among the EU institutions, the European Parliament (EP) tends to be notoriously underestimated. This is particularly true in the field of external relations, usually perceived as a prerogative of the executive. As seen from the past legislature (2004–2009) the EP showed, however, that there are several formal and informal mechanisms with which it influenced the European Union's agenda for global development, e.g. using this influence to keep Africa at the top of the list. The context for such a role was certainly more favourable when the previous legislature took office in 2004, with high growth rates worldwide and expanding emerging powers. But the ability of the EP – and Europe as a whole – to adequately respond to challenges arising from global events has since been under severe strain. Besides the need to address the climate change agenda, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) – for which progress will be reviewed in 2010 – and humanitarian disasters as they arise, the financial and economic crisis has increased the urgency for a common European voice. If the EU aspires to be a global actor, it also needs to ensure its own internal coherence. The European Parliament has an important role to play in international development. Although it is a politically diverse actor by nature, it remains, nevertheless, a key institution for democratic scrutiny and thus legitimacy of European policies including global policy – and it should aspire to this. By seeking a more strategic engagement – as opposed to micromanagement –, the EP has the potential to further increase its impact on and contribute to a European policy for global development.

Von allen Institutionen der Europäischen Union (EU) wird das Europäische Parlament (EP) vermutlich am meisten unterschätzt. Dies trifft insbesondere auf seine Rolle im Bereich der Außenbeziehungen zu: Obwohl das EP über eine Reihe formeller und informeller Einflussmechanismen verfügt, sind in der EU – ähnlich wie in nationalstaatlichen Systemen – Außenbeziehungen primär ein Vorrecht der Exekutive. Die vergangene Legislaturperiode (2004–2009) hat allerdings gezeigt, dass das EP trotzdem in der Lage war, die europäische Agenda für globale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit deutlich zu beeinflussen – insbesondere bei der Sicherung einer herausragenden Stellung für Afrika. In der jüngsten Vergangenheit profitierte das EP dabei sicherlich von positiven globalen Rahmenbedingungen für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit, die von hohen Wachstumsraten und der zunehmenden Bedeutung aufstrebender Mächte gekennzeichnet waren. Die Fähigkeit des EP und der EU insgesamt, auf internationale Herausforderungen zu reagieren, gerät jedoch zunehmend unter Druck und wird in der kommenden Legislaturperiode wahrscheinlich auf eine harte Probe gestellt: Angesichts des globalen Klimawandels, der für das Jahr 2010 anstehenden Fortschrittsüberprüfung der Umsetzung der UNMillenniumsentwicklungsziele und humanitärer Katastrophen etwa in Darfur oder Simbabwe ist eine gemeinsame europäische Stimme mehr vonnöten denn je. Hierbei kommt es auch darauf an, die innere Kohärenz der EU als globalen Akteur zu stärken und weiterzuentwickeln. Das EP übernimmt dabei eine gewichtige Rolle: Es ist das einzige EU-Organ mit einer unmittelbaren demokratischen Legitimierung und übt gleichzeitig eine demokratische Kontrollfunktion aus. Wenn es strategisch vorgeht, hat das EP die Möglichkeit, seine Bedeutung und seinen Einfluss in den europäischen Außenbeziehungen zu erweitern, die großen Politiklinien zu entscheiden und damit den Beitrag Europas zur globalen Entwicklungspolitik weiter zu fördern.