Ministers to tackle contradictions in Union’s development policy

Date: 13/02/1997

By Elizabeth Wise

THE need for greater coherence in the EU's policy towards developing countries will top the agenda at an informal meeting of ministers at the start of next month.

Dutch Development Minister Jan Pronk, a man with a mission and the political weight to push it through, wants to eliminate the inconsistencies in the Union's numerous policies towards the developing world.

His main weapon will be the Maastricht Treaty, which states that in all the policies it implements which are likely to affect developing countries, the Union should take account of the goals of fighting poverty and sustaining development in the third world.

The Union sees itself as a generous giver - and it is. But it sometimes takes away with one hand what it has given with the other.

When EU development ministers agree to provide funding for a small fishing village, the Union is promoting local development. But that may be undermined when fisheries ministers strike agreements with a foreign government to give EU boats the right to trawl for tonnes of fish off the very same coast.

“There must be coherence between the different parts of the Commission working in the same geographic region,” said a Dutch diplomat.

Another disastrous example of incoherence was the Union's shipments of subsidised beef to west Africa in the early 1990s. The exports might have been motivated by generosity, but they had a devastating impact on native cattle-rearers.

“The subsidised European beef was sold so cheaply on the African market that even cattle-herding nomads could not compete,” said the diplomat.

Development programmes could also serve the Union's other goals, such as stemming immigration from neighbouring countries.

“We need to look at the way development assistance can be used to create the conditions for migrants or refugees to return,” he explained.

One of the EU's prime motives for providing generous development grants to the north African nations linked through the Union's Euro-Mediterranean agreements is the desire to curb the flow of northward migration.

Diplomats say Pronk will not avoid this sensitive issue, although he is likely to duck the controversial question of whether governments, in their drive for food security, should go as far as sending troops to deliver vital supplies.

Glaring inconsistencies in the EU's policies are not the only problem hindering the effective use of Union development aid.

The national development policies of EU member states also vary widely - both in terms of who they fund and how they do it - making it difficult to get agreement on common policies.

Discord over how much to spend on 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries kept Union nations squabbling for months and postponed delivery of the European Development Fund (EDF). It also fuelled mistrust and disappointment in the recipient countries.

Aides to Pronk in The Hague say the problem of divergent national policies “is obviously an issue”, but will not be addressed at the 1 March informal meeting.

MEPs, however, are tackling the subject head on and making their distaste for such squabbling known. A resolution to be voted on by the full Parliament next Thursday (20 February) states: “The European Union's inability to achieve complementarity between the member states and the Union's policies is a political failure on the Union's part.”

That failure, it says, “is primarily due to the absence of political will in the Council [of Ministers] and member states”.