Polityka Rozwojowa UE/ EU Development Policy: maja 2009

“In an ideal world, policy agendas would be developed rationally, problems would be prioritized, options would be carefully researched and weighed, and the best solutions would be implemented,
monitored, and evaluated. But modern society is too complex to make such an ideal possible, and studies of policy routinely emphasize the scarcity of real organization. The result is that policy is often
driven by compromise, opportunism, and unpredictable political pressures. This is certainly true of the EU, where the challenge [is to identify and address] the needs of more than 450 million people,
who have their own ideas about their priorities and the best way of dealing with their problems” (McCormik, 2005, EUHES, 2007)

The origins of the European development cooperation are as old as the European Community itself, and are a direct consequence of the post-colonial ‘special relations’ between former colonial countries and the member states (Holland, 2002). Therefore already in the Treaty of Rome a status of associated states was ensure to specific categories of countries, described as Overseas Collectivities and Territories (OCTs) and extended later, on the countries of Commonwealth (Great Britain accession in 1973). Since the 1975 - the first Lome Convention the term ACP was in use (the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries). The relations between member states and its former colonies has been modified through series of agreements (Yaonde, Lome I, Lome II, Lome III, Lome IV, Cotonou, EPAs) and established the EU development policy that seeks to reduce poverty and assists developing countries in trade and regional integration through fostering equitable and environmentally sustainable growth, smooth and gradual integration into the world economy, and links trade with poverty reduction. Fully formulated as such was in the Treaty on European Union (Title XX, art 177-181) and repeated later, among others in the European Consensus on Development from 2005 (ECD, 2005 p.21).
From its inception, the relations between member states and ACP where always under severe critique: for its inadequate focus only on postcolonial countries, ineffective framework, limited scope of action, short-term perspective and most of all for incoherency (Holland, 2002, pp.25-29) (Focke Report, 1980). Although one should acknowledge that full coherence is never to be achieved in pluralistic system, where various interests and approaches need to be compromised by the leading institutions, it seems that synergy is essential to accomplish European development objectives (Gautier, 2004 ). This necessity is reflected in the Maastricht Treaty which summed up EU's principles for development cooperation in the so-called '3Cs': complementarity, coherence and coordination (EUHES, 2007). Since that time the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) became one of the fundamental laws in the European Union (Art.130) and continued its evolution with latest European Commssion's Working Paper 'EU Report on Policy Coherence for Development' (COM(2007)545 final) (ibidem).
In the European Consensus on Development European Commission states: ‘It is important that non-development policies assist developing countries’ efforts in achieving the Millennium Goals. The EU shall take account of the objectives of development cooperation in all policies that it implements which are likely to affect developing countries’. As the following examples will show, although EC acknowledges the necessity to elaborate more coherent polical agenda to enhance development in the world’s poorest, the gap between intension and practice still remains disturbing.

to be continue..