I am a recent graduate from King’s College London with extensive knowledge in several academic fields, including the EU, international relations and security, and history. Currently I am taking a course in International Finance to broaden my knowledge in the area. I have research experience from having obtained two master Degrees and from doing research internships at NGOs.

Are development objectives in EU foreign policy increasingly crowded out by security objectives?

Introduction
In European Union (EU) foreign policy, development cooperation is as old as the organisation itself, and has ever since the Treaty of Rome constituted a cornerstone in the Union’s foreign policy¹. Many factors can be said to have influenced EU development policy, but foremost is arguably Europe’s legacy of imperialism – from the very start, the founding Member States had colonies or were involved in the process of conceding them. French and Belgian interests and responsibilities for the newly independent countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, set the geographical scope for the EC’s development policy; when Great Britain, Spain and Portugal later joined, the scope widened even more, to incorporate countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Together, these countries formed the ACP group (African, Caribbean and Pacific Group) in 1975. While the former colonies in Asia and Latin America were not neglected, it was in relation to the ACP countries, the ‘special relationships’, that the EC’s development policies and practices were shaped, and where institutionalisation of cooperation and partnership has been the most extensive and far-reaching².

The essential motive behind the ‘special relationships’ and associations was, aside from Europe’s perceived responsibility, to support ACP countries financially and to assist in the social and political development of these, as well as to strengthen the economic ties between them and the EC. There is an apparent link between the EU’s ‘development provisions’ and its foreign policy, in that its objectives are to ‘contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law…and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms’³.

Over the years, the relationship, or ‘partnership’, between the EU and the ACP has evolved continuously from trade and development, to a ‘three-pronged interaction with trade, development and political dialogue’. The nature of the relationship has gradually begun to reflect the Union’s increased ‘actorness’ and stature in world politics, manifested by ‘continually expanding political conditionalities’ and penalties for failure to meet the EU’s ‘prescriptions’⁴. Further dimensions have been integrated and incorporated into the EU’s development policy, such as migration and asylum, environment, and security, the result of the increased politicisation and securitisation of development, and a more holistic understanding of the policy area on the Union’s part. Development has accordingly ‘lost its former independent position’, and now represents but one element in the EU’s ever expanding global political agenda⁵.

Pursuing the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to alleviate poverty (with the aim of its complete eradication) in developing countries are still top priorities for the Union, but the means and policies with which to achieve the objectives have changed; in the official EU documents, global security and development are now seen as closely linked, security being a ‘precondition for development’. Greater emphasis has also been placed on coherency and improved effectiveness of EU development policies, as well as better coordination within and between the Union’s institutions⁶. The Cotonou Agreement, signed in 2000 between the EU and the ACP Group, reflects this development. Terrorism, the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), submission to the International Criminal Court (the ICC) and ‘stringent export controls’ to counter the proliferation of WMDs, have all been introduced and made conditional in the new agreement⁷.

The question posed by this essay is whether the EU’s development objectives - including poverty eradication, fostering democracy, good governance and the rule of law - are being increasingly crowded out by security aims and concerns. The Cotonou Agreement as well as the European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003 both indicates that the Union’s emphasis has shifted from ‘traditional’ development policies towards ‘hard’ strategies. This paper will argue that the EU’s new development strategy has undergone major changes, with increasing politicisation and securitisation of the traditional development agenda. This is, in part, due to the Union’s desire to strengthen the capability and gravity of its foreign policy, which would arguably make it easier to unite the foreign policies of the Member States.

Furthermore, contrary to the idealism of certain scholars, this paper will argue that a wholly ‘unselfish’ EU development policy is inconceivable; rather, where EU and developing countries’ interests coincide, progress and results can be obtained.

EU Development Policy: From Trade and Aid to Politics and Security
Taken collectively, the EU (together with its Member States) is currently the world’s largest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA), providing €43 bn, of which the European Commission administered 20 per cent⁸. For several decades, the EU and its Member States have been the biggest providers of aid and assistance, and have pursued a policy of ‘trade openness’ towards the ACP (Africa being the priority region). Over the years, the development partnership and the agreements struck between the parties have been overseen, revised and modified, reflecting structural changes in world affairs, as well as the changing opinions and attitudes of international organisations and the academic world⁹.

Thus, the Union’s development policy has undergone major shifts from the signings of the Yaoundé Convention (1963-1974), which emphasised aid and preferential trade, and the Lomé Convention (1975-1999), which was more comprehensive in its design, incorporated political dialogue and made poverty reduction a central objective¹⁰. The first Conventions were ‘purely economic’ agreements - reflecting the desire not to compromise the principles of state sovereignty – and barely touched upon political principles and values¹¹.

This was about to change, however. In the 1980s, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) launched their ‘structural adjustment policies’, which meant that ACP and other developing countries (including the ‘Less Developed Countries’, LDCs) had to adhere to the principles of the market economy in order to receive further support. The collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s entailed a change in focus on part of the EU from the ACP countries to the countries of East and Central Europe, a shift that was facilitated by the then prevalent ‘afropessimism’, i.e. Western pessimism towards the third world’s possibilities and prospects¹². At the same time EU policy-and decisionmakers began to acknowledge that the earlier development policies and activities, and years of preferential trading, had not produced any tangible improvements in either trade or GDP growth¹³. The World Bank and the IMF also expressed concerns about the privileged, nonreciprocal access to the European single market granted to the ACP countries, since it was perceived as discriminating against other developing countries¹⁴.

As capitalism and democracy were about to prevail in the Cold War, the international donor community drew two important conclusions: market economics and liberal values ‘were correct’; and imposing ‘external values could change the course of development in a third country’. The step from economic to political conditionality proved to be short, as ‘the former…showed that state sovereignty was not an inviolable principle’¹⁵.

The international events of the 1990s, such as the war in the Balkans and the genocide in Rwanda underlined the collective European inability to manage international crises, even when they took place on its backyard¹⁶. This prompted EU decisionmakers to ponder and reconsider Europe’s role in world affairs, and to forge a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Conditionality was introduced in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, and from then on countries not complying with EU directives might be subject to sanctions and other punitive measures. This reflected the Union’s growing desire to promote its founding ideals in relations with third countries and regions, using ‘soft power’ as a foreign policy tool¹⁷.

The Cotonou Agreement (CPA I) from 2000 (amended in 2005; CPA II) reflected this development in its emphasis on democracy, human rights, good governance and rule of law, but also the ‘conditional mechanism related to bribery and corruption’. The EU has adopted a more holistic approach to reducing poverty in developing countries, and the provisions are intended to ‘stimulate reform’ in the partnership countries. While retaining the main objective of poverty reduction, the Union’s new provisions meant that not all ACP countries, unless they abide by the rules and directives, are entitled to aid and assistance. An analysis of the Agreement, and taking into consideration the ESS of 2003, suggests that the foreign policy objectives of the EU has ‘merged’ with the development objectives of the EC, in the pursuit of greater coherence and efficiency. Hence, the Union’s ‘harder’ focus on intervention and reducing security threats emerging in developing countries is increasingly underwriting the ‘softer’ objectives of the EC¹⁸. This is illustrated by the competition between two opposite views within the DG Development (responsible for development in the European Commission), one side defending the ‘holistic paradigm’ and the other promoting ‘traditional development work’¹⁹.

While coherence and effectiveness are needed for the EU if it is to achieve its foreign policy objectives, there is a danger in including too many security clauses and provisions, in that it can distort the development policy and prove confusing to the ACP countries in terms of the ‘hierarchy of interests’²⁰ . The increased prominence of security, with new directives on counter-terrorism and proliferation of WMDs, may actually have the unintentional effect of strengthening undemocratic regimes in developing countries, as these might use the provisions as a pretext for strengthening control and crack down on political opponents²¹.

The Cotonou Agreement has received criticism for the imbalance in the power relations between the parties, that is, the ‘partnership’ still remains a ‘one-sided affair’. The EU has also sought to impose its own ‘regionalization’ agenda upon the ACP countries, encouraging and promoting institutionalisation of the cooperation. The problem with this approach is that the ACP Group does not function as a cohesive entity with a single voice in development, trade and aid²². The EU Member States have a highly institutionalised cooperation and are accustomed to talking to each other; the same is not the case with the ACP countries. While the keyword in the Lomé Convention was ‘entitlement’, ‘differentiation’ is now a central feature in the Cotonou Agreement; ‘maximum benefit’ will only be granted to 40 LDCs, whereas the other ACP countries should preferably negotiate Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), free trade agreements based on trade reciprocity. The Union encourages the ACP countries not eligible for maximum aid to organise in regional groups and on that basis ‘enter into an EPA with the EU²³.

Furthermore, the Union has supported ‘local ownership’ with the assumption that ACP governments would recognize their ‘development priorities and function as co-managers’. This has proved to be difficult, however, since many ACP civil services are inadequate and not capable of formulating development policy. This in turn prompted the EU to take a more ‘interventionist stance’ and to take the lead in formulating policies on part of the ACP countries; local ownership thus risks being lost as well as the governments’ reform commitment²⁴.

A Changing Development Discourse: The Challenges Ahead for the European Union
As have been mentioned briefly above, EU development policy has recently undergone changes because of international events, not least the tragedy of 9/11 and the following ‘war on terrorism’. Poverty and underdevelopment are increasingly understood as threats to security and peace, and security and political stability are seen as essential for sustainable development²⁵. These provisions received strong criticism by the African ACP countries, mainly because ‘terrorism has not been a cardinal issue’ in Africa, apart from the bombings in East Africa in 1998²⁶.

Development, aid and assistance to developing countries are also seen as contributing to the Union’s ‘actorness’ and impact in world affairs. As the EU has become more prescriptive and interventionist in its partnership relations to ACP countries, the balance between the ‘partners’ has tipped increasingly in the Europeans’ favour and, from the recipient countries point of view, the Union is seen as placing ‘unrealistic demands’ and the dialogue to be ‘largely donor-dominated’. This development is as much a result of the inner dynamics within the EU as external events; the construction of a credible and capable CFSP requires priority setting and linking development policy with the Union’s overarching foreign policy goals²⁷.

The Member States have committed themselves to double their development aid to certain Sub-Saharan Africa, which is seen as a priority region for combating poverty. In line with this ambitious undertaking, the European Commission has striven to improve the quality of EU aid by improving coherence and coordination of aid policies and activities. This is to be achieved through devolving authority to the external Commission delegations, reducing the number of instruments used, coordinating activities with Member States and reforming aid management in general²⁸.

The European Consensus on Development, presented in 2005, aims to promote ‘a common view and set of strategies’ guiding the policies of both the Commission and the broader ones of the EU in international development. The document envisages that development policy will allow the EU ‘to pursue overall Community interests…but also economic and political weight and influence at an international level’, not merely for the benefit of ACP states but essentially to ‘expand the global dimension of its development policy’. According to the draft, development can endow the Union with leverage and clout trough using a ‘coherent overall strategy’ and ensuring ‘synergies between trade, aid, economic cooperation and political dialogue’. What many scholars have pointed out is the lack of a proper definition of poverty in the document, as well as any suggestions how to reduce poverty; purportedly, the key challenge, as presented in the draft, is how the EU can attain global leverage and promote European values such as democracy, social justice and sustainable development²⁹.

There is a danger in these statements, in that, as Dearden has pointed out, ‘the focus upon poverty reduction will be obscured…A potential confusion between objectives and instruments remains…³⁰’ Securitization and politicisation of objectives risk preventing development policy from focusing on economic assistance, when visibility, actorness and ‘flagwaving’ become more important than the original aims of reducing the plight of the ACP countries. This may have implications for the partner countries³¹â€™ view of the EU as well, in augmenting their image of the Union as domineering and selfish; as Vogt argues, ‘its intentions may be in vain, if the other side does not believe that the intentions truly are good’³².

It is worth reiterating that EU policies towards the ACP Group have not sprung up out of unselfishness and altruism, but that the Union has maintained the institutional links ‘out of economic and political interests’ with the desire to ‘maximise its access to markets’, even the small ones. EU development policy is at the same time a product of a sense of responsibility as it is a result of sober economic thinking; thus, its policies are in a sense destined to remain vague and ambiguous in the eyes of others³³. At the same time, while it is naïve to imagine an completely altruistic and unselfish EU development policy, it is clearly in its interests to make it more efficient and beneficial for its partner countries, if only to contribute to a more positive image of Europe in the world.

Some of the EU’s missions in Africa have arguably been the results of the Union’s ambitions to ‘establish a CFSP…and give [it] a role in world politics’³⁴. The small-scale, ‘cosmetic’ operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that lasted only for a couple of months are arguably testimonies to this³⁵.

On the whole, the EU’s development policy has undergone major shifts from the traditional development paradigm that dominated until the 1990s, to a holistic, multidimensional, securitized discourse more amply described as ‘foreign development policy’, reflecting the merging of different objectives, values, instruments and means into a perhaps more coherent policy, but yet still ambiguous and vague³⁶.

Conclusion

This essay set out to examine whether the EU’s development policy has become increasingly ‘crowded out’ by security objectives and a new discourse that promotes a new take on poverty.

The EU (together with its Member States) remains the world’s biggest provider of aid and developmental assistance, and has since its inception committed itself to assist and support developing countries in combating poverty through a number of instruments and activities. Beginning with the Yaoundé and Lomé Conventions (running from 1963-1974 and 1975-1999, respectively), trade and aid were the key features of the ‘partnership’ between the EU and the ACP countries, and the prevalent paradigm was ‘traditional’ development assistance focusing purely on economic matters. Politics, morals and values were not incorporated into the agreements and were considered the domains of sovereign states alone.

The development discourses has since changed, reflecting international events and structural changes, most notably the end of the Cold War, the Balkan wars and the genocide in Rwanda. In the 1980s, focus shifted towards structural adjustment, favoured by the IMF and the World Bank, which entailed fiscal efficiency and the end of preferential trading for the ACP countries. In the beginning of the 1990s, liberal values and capitalism had prevailed over communism and planned economy, which affected the global development discourse, and the EU’s. Acknowledging that previous policies and activities had had little success, the Union introduced conditionality and punitive measures as a means to increase aid efficiency and come to terms with the poor progress in developing countries.

The Cotonou Agreement in 2000, and its revision in 2005, meant that new issue areas and concerns were put forward and given importance, not least following 9/11 and the War on Terror. In order to obtain greater coherency in its development policy, and to increase the EU’s actorness and impact in world affairs, the ‘traditional’ development policies and activities of the EC ‘merged’ with the overarching, more general and ‘holistic’ objectives of the Union’s CFSP. The ‘partnership’ has for long been a one-sided affair, wherein the EU in practice dictates the terms and sets the agenda, but Cotonou tipped the balance in Europe’s favour even further. In this, here is a risk that the EU’s new development agenda might endanger and obscure the ‘original objective of poverty reduction. The policy of today can amply be described as ‘foreign development policy.

Over the years, the Union has managed to translate its founding values and identity into ‘normative action’, and has managed to distance itself considerably from some of the Member States’ colonial and imperial pasts. Simply by ‘being itself’, the EU exerts attraction and it has developed its own ‘distinctive approach’ reflecting the values and norms of which the Union was conceived. The danger with the changes in recent years’ EU development policies and the ESS, is that these may threaten to undermine the Union’s value-based identity³⁷.

References
Bretherton, Charlotte and Vogler, John, 2006. The European Union as a Global Actor.
Great Britain: Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn

Carbone, Maurizio. Better Aid, Less Ownership: Multi-Annual Programming and the EU's Development Strategies in Africa. Journal of International Development, Volume 20, Issue 2, 2008.

Dearden, Stephen. The Future Role of the European Union in Europe’s Development Assistance. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Volume 16, Number 1, 2003.

Dearden, Stephen. European Union Development Policy – The Challenge of Implementation. Journal of International Development, Volume 20, Issue 2, 2008.

Grimm, Sven and Kielwein, Nina. The European Union’s Strategy for Africa – Coherence in the Face of a Complex Changing Continent? German Development Institute, Briefing Paper, 2005.

Hadfield, Amelia. Janus Advances? An Analysis of EC Development Policy and the 2005 Amended Cotonou Partnership Agreement. European Foreign Affairs Review, Volume 12, 2007.

Haine, Yean-Yves and Giegerich, Bastian. In Congo, a cosmetic EU Operation.
International Herald Tribune, 2006-06-12. Retrieved 2007-12-20
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/12/opinion/edhaine.php

Hill, Christopher and Smith, Michael (ed.), 2005. International Relations and the European Union. Great Britain: Oxford University Press

Kingah, Stephen. The Revised Cotonou Agreement between the European Community and the African, Caribbean and Pacific States: Innovations on Security, Political Dialogue, Transparency, Money and Social Responsibility. Journal of African Law, Volume 50, 2006.

Mayer, Hartmut and Vogt, Henri (ed.), 2006. A Responsible Europe? Ethical Foundations of EU External Affairs. Great Britain: Palgrave MacMillan.

McCormick, John (ed.), 2005. Understanding the European Union. China: Palgrave MacMillan.

Smith, Hazel, 2002. European Union Foreign Policy: What it is and What it Does. USA: Pluto Press.
Teló, Mario, 2007. Europe: A Civilian Power? European Union, Global Governance, World Order. Great Britain: Palgrave MacMillan.

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¹ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 159
² Bretherton and Vogler (2006) p 111-12, 113-14
³ Smith (2002) p 21
⁴ Bretherton and Vogler (2006) p 135
⁵ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 168
⁶ Grimm and Kielwein (2005) p 2
⁷ Kingah (2006) p 60-1
⁸ Dearden (2008) p 187
⁹ Teló (2007) p 140
¹⁰ Hadfield (2007) p 41-2
¹¹ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 162
¹² Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 161-2 
¹³ Hadfield (2007) p 42
¹⁴ Hill and Smith et al (2005) p 44
¹⁵ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 162
¹⁶ McCormick (2005) p 212 
¹⁷ Smith (2002) p 22-3
¹⁸ Hadfield (2007) p 42-4
¹⁹ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 168
²⁰ Hadfield (2007) p 44
²¹ Kingah (2006) p 61
²² Bretherton and Vogler (2006) p 135
²³ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 193
²⁴ Dearden (2003) p 107
²⁵ Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 168
²⁶ Kingah (2006) p 61
²⁷ Hadfield (2007) p 45
²⁸ Carbone (2008) p 218-19
²⁹ Hadfield (2007) p 49-50
³⁰ Dearden (2003) p 108
³¹ Hadfield (2007) p 51
³² Mayer and Vogt et al (2006) p 170
³³ Smith (2002) p 197
³⁴ Hadfield (2007) p 52
³⁵ Haine and Giegerich (2006)
³⁶ Hadfield (2007) p 52
³⁷ Bretherton and Vogler (2006) p 223