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This article examines the role of the European Union's (EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) with the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of states. Bringing together 105 countries from four different continents and characterized by a more than forty-five-year long continuity and a high degree of institutionalization, the JPA is a unique institution in the EU's network of inter-parliamentary diplomacy. Despite its increased importance in the past decade, the role of the JPA remains understudied in academic literature. The analytical framework for examining this role consists of two parts. While the first part is based on a document analysis and expert interviews, the second part investigates the JPA members' own role conceptions by means of semi-structured interviews with delegates from the European Parliament and national ACP parliaments. We argue that the role of the JPA is (1) to advocate the empowerment of the ACP national parliaments, (2) to socialize parliamentarians towards a democratic culture, and (3) to monitor the implementation of the Cotonou agreement. The conclusion reads that, while the role of the JPA has been strongly extended, there are some serious endogenous and exogenous problems that have a major impact on its activities and its influence.

The 2015 Paris Agreement adopted at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) constitutes a major landmark in the combat against climate change. However, international climate governance and the climate deal have been confronted with concerns about their legitimacy and accountability. In the same vein, while the combat against climate change also takes centre stage in the EU's inter-regional relations, the EU's approach has suffered from democratic deficits as well. Literature on parliamentary diplomacy and interregionalism has pointed at the potential of inter-parliamentary assemblies' monitoring and deliberation functions in addressing the legitimacy gap of intergovernmental agreements. This article puts the focus on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean and climate change, and analyses to what extent and how the Assembly fulfills these monitoring and deliberation functions. In doing so, the article aims to examine how inter-parliamentary assemblies can contribute to the legitimacy of the EU's inter-regional approach to climate change. The analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative text analysis, in-depth semi-structured interviews and participatory observation. The conclusion reads that, while the Parliamentary Assembly of the UfM (PA-UfM) has indeed used its monitoring and deliberative functions, there are several limitations related to the asymmetry between the EU and its Southern and Eastern Mediterranean partner countries, that hamper its potential contribution to add legitimacy to the Union for the Mediterranean's (UfM) climate action.
Climate change, legitimacy, European Union, monitoring, deliberation, inter-regionalism, parliamentary diplomacy, inter-parliamentary cooperation, energy, Mediterranean

While policy and academic discourses point to important shifts in EU development policy, it remains difficult to ascertain the level of these changes. The main aim of this article is to propose a research agenda on change and continuity in EU development policy. Drawing on the literatures on paradigm change and post-development, this involves four key questions for future research: (1) How can we map the EU's current paradigm? (2) How can we map changes and continuities in this regard? (3) How can we explain changes and continuities? (4) What role do policy experiments play in this regard? In addressing these four questions, the article pays particular attention to what we already know from existing literature and to what issues could guide future research. We highlight that ostensibly significant changes are often 'merely' second order changes that do not challenge underlying philosophical ideas of the Eurocentric, modernist and colonial paradigm. Specifically, we point at the importance of studying whether policy experiments 'reinvent' this paradigm or induce paradigmatic change. In the conclusions, we summarize the research agenda and reflect on the need of a better acknowledgement of the 'PlEUriverse' of alternatives to 'development' within Europe.

AbstractMotivationPromoting coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) is a key means of implementation for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, yet it has been overlooked as policy discussions have focused predominantly on the financing of the agenda. The literature and policy debates about PCSD largely focus on processes and on OECD countries, and they neglect their political and normative dimensions. This article complements recent literature on PCSD by elaborating and testing a relational perspective on the concept.PurposeTo address these issues, this article elaborates a relational perspective that responds to the misrepresentation of third countries as passive recipients of (in)coherent OECD policy preferences.Methods and approachThe analysis presented summarizes the literature on the related concepts of PCSD and Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). On this basis, the article articulates a relational perspective on policy coherence that complements other critical perspectives in the literature. Subsequently, it explores the potential and relevance of this relational perspective by analysing how the fisheries policy preferences of the European Union interact with those of Ghana.FindingsOverall, the analysis shows that a commitment to sustainable fisheries cannot be assumed for either the EU or Ghana. Furthermore, assessing the responsibilities of the EU and Ghana around sustainability and degrees of adherence is difficult due to the presence of other fishing nations and influences. In the context of the EU's ambitious policy framework, the continued overfishing in Ghanaian waters negatively affects the credibility and justification of its continued involvement. Policy dialogue between the EU and the Ghanaian government and accompanying EU technical assistance have supported changes to Ghanaian fisheries policies, but overfishing continues.Policy implicationsDiscussions on promoting PCSD should be supported by more empirical research into the extent and manner that policy preferences consider by policy‐makers to be coherent with the 2030 Agenda contribute to advancing the agenda in different country and regional contexts.