title: From damage control to sustainable development: European development policy under the next EU budget
Creators: name: Koch, Svea
name: Keijzer, Niels
name: Hackenesch, Christine
name: Bergmann, Julian
Publisher: name: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/01t3zke88
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Deutsche Entwicklungspolitik
subject: Europäische Entwicklungspolitik
subject: Entwicklungsfinanzierung
subject: German Development Policy
subject: European Development Policy
subject: Development Financing

description: The EU is one of the leading global players in international development, trade, peace
 and security. Therefore, a key part of the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is
 the one reserved for action beyond EU’s borders. This budget heading is called ‘Global
 Europe’ (also referred to as Heading IV). Under the current budget for the period of 2014
 to 2020, including the inter-governmental European Development Fund (EDF), over 90 billion
 euros are available for the EU’s external action. The lion’s share of this is reserved for
 development cooperation. In previous years, the EU has dealt with new challenges in
 external action mostly by creating specific initiatives and new financial instruments. At
 the start of the negotiations on the next MFF, Heading IV thus appears to be rather
 complex and fragmented compared to other headings. <br> In addition to the fragmentation
 of the instruments, the EU has also failed to make clear strategy level choices. Recent EU
 strategies create an impression that nearly everything is a priority, overstretching the
 EU’s financial as well as implementation capacity. This lack of a clear direction has
 allowed member states’ governments to put forward their own strategic interests (mostly
 related to migration and security). Given the tight budget situation of the EU, a clear
 direction for Heading IV needs to be developed that helps to address a number of
 bottlenecks and trade-offs. These relate to (i) the overall volume, (ii) the thematic
 choices, (iii) the recipients of EU funding and (iv) the architecture of Heading IV.
 <br> Concerning volume, it is important to acknowledge that the other, larger budget
 headings will determine the budgetary space for EU development policy. Despite discussions
 on increasing member state contributions, Brexit is likely to result in a smaller overall
 budget. New political priorities (such as migration and security) are expected to further
 squeeze funding for sustainable development. Choices thus need to be made in terms of
 issues and geographic focus. <br> As for the thematic choices, the short-term involvement
 in crisis response needs to be combined with a clear strategy for engaging with partners
 on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs through geographic and thematic programmes. The partners’ SDG
 strategies and the EU’s added value should guide this engagement. <br> Geographically,
 the EU needs to strike a balance between the cooperation with middle-income countries
 (MICs) and a focus on the poorest countries. This can only be achieved by focusing
 geographic allocations to LDCs, neighbouring countries and sub-Saharan Africa, while
 engaging with MICs in other regions through thematic programmes. <br> In addition,
 Heading IV needs to be strongly rationalised, both in terms of the number of instruments
 and initiatives and of the rules for managing these. A key prerequisite in this regard –
 also for the proposal of a single instrument in Heading IV – would be the ‘budgetisation’
 of the intergovernmental EDF, which would allow for a truly European development policy.
description: Briefing Paper, 7/2018