Committee on Development Ordinary meeting
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DEVE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 5
Guarantee, splendid finance and investment platforms have become much more central. And energy, connectivity, and raw materials now occupy a more prominent place in external action. So the tension does not stem from formal abandonment, but from a relative de-prioritization in narrative instruments and institutional practice. The study treats policy coherence as its central legal and normative benchmark. Its conclusion is that risks for policy clearance are concentrated.
We argue the lower relative risk domains are those where development or humanitarian logics remain visible: poverty reduction and human development, humanitarian aid and crisis response, and democracy, human rights, and gender equality. Then there's a middle group, which contains mixed domains: climate and energy, trade and economic partnership, the private sector and investment agenda, and peace and security. In these areas, alignment, we argue, is possible, but it depends heavily on design safeguards and credible development metrics. The highest structural tensions in the studies assessment are migration and mobility, raw materials and industrial policy, and geopolitics or systemic competition. In those areas, the risk is that development objectives become residual unless strong counterweights are in place.
And our coherence assessment is an indicative one, but it is a qualitative assessment based on a review and synthesis of a pretty substantial body of literature and evaluative evidence. We pick out three episodes to illustrate the argument. First, migration linked to external financing. The key point here is not that all migration-related programming is non-developmental. It is that when the operative benchmark becomes cooperation on controlling irregular migration, development cooperation can become a bargaining chip.
That risks distorting partner priorities and weakening ownership. Second, climate and energy. This is one of the most plausible mutual interest domains, and alignment is certainly possible. But the study warns that partner country needs can be subordinated to EU energy security and industrial priorities if the design of partnerships is weak, if local value addition is limited, or if the benefits are described as mutual without being made substantively mutual. Third, investment mobilization.
The shift to guarantees, blended finance, and investment platforms is one of the most important structural changes in the current agenda. The study here highlights recurring concerns also from our interview partners around transparency, additionality, development impact demonstration, debt sustainability, and the risk of reintroducing what we call tight eight dynamics by the backdoor. The study's recommendations are practical, and we think or we hope speak to the parliament's levers. First, we recommend setting guardrails. Any measure reported as ODA should be justified by a clear development rationale, including poverty reduction and inequality impacts.
Parliament could protect core targets from a sort of quiet dilution, including by preserving meaningful floors for poverty-focused spending, human development, and civil society. If flexibility mechanisms are kept or even expanded, they should come with transparent triggering criteria, time limits, and strong exposed reporting. Second, strengthening transparency and scrutiny. We argue that parliament needs timely programming information that is substantial enough for real scrutiny, not only aggregated, exposed reporting. The study recommends open data on projects and contracts, including Global Gateway, alongside publication of project information.
One useful idea, we hope at least in the study, is a public transparency hub to that end. Third, making the private sector agenda development-proof. The study here recommends strict application of economic, social, and environmental standards, treating debt sustainability as a first-order constraint and preserving open competitive procurement so that European preference does not quietly become tied aid in a new form. My concluding point. The issue is not whether we argue European interests matter.
They do. And as the study shows, they always have to, to a certain extent. The real question is whether development objectives remain operational when priorities collide. The question is also whether a more transactional, conditionality-heavy culture of development corporation may end up weakening precisely the enlightened self-interest it claims to serve. By eroding soft power, credibility, partner ownership, and ultimately, the development effectiveness on which the union's long-term interests also depend.
What matters is whether the system is built to manage trade-offs openly, transparently, and against credible development benchmarks. That is where we see parliament's role as decisive. The more flexibility the system grants to the executive, the more accountability needs to increase. So the study's final plea is for stronger guardrails, stronger scrutiny, and a more honest narrative that moves beyond automatic win-win language. Thank you.
Thank.
Hildegard Bentele
thank you very much. You introduced that in a very precise way, and I think it will help our debate. I'm turning to my colleagues now to see who would like the floor. I see Odehuhlmann. Go ahead.
Udo Bullmann
Well, thank you, chair, and thank you, doctor Schlergel and colleagues, for this study. I'm not doing that too often, but let me also complement DG Expo and the external policies analysis and support unit for having chosen you because I did not have too much time to run to the study. Half an hour is not enough, but I was reading quickly from the beginning, roughly to the end. And I really think that you are precisely describing where we are. And I see Charles Gurrens with his experience, nodding in the chair.
You confront the reality with the promises, and you do a job which I would like to describe as absolutely worthwhile. Because the most dangerous thing at the very moment, not only in development policy, in policy making, is not so much this or that paradigm shift, can always be discussed against the backdrops of current challenges. The most worrying development is the abuse of language. The use of language in political speech, which is not affiliated with the heritage of enlightenment anymore, which is not really giving clarity and telling the truth of what you think the truth is, but becomes an element of propaganda, of defense, of vested interests of what you intend to do anyhow, and then you find wonderful language for that. And having learned that so often in various places, also here in the European institutions, I would say, yes, this is one of the reasons why people do not listen anymore to political speech, and why people are disappointed about their representatives.
Coming back to our issue of development policy, you have made that clear in the analysis of the category of mutual interest because you describe the justifiable use of that word, but also the trap if it's used only or merely for ideological purposes. And this is a great stuff for us, for our teams, but even more, I would say, for our communication with the other European institutions, for the communication of the commission, for the communication with national institutions, parliamentarians, etcetera, etcetera. Because there is nothing more boring here in the seat of the European Parliament than permanently listening to the same codes of abused language. This is what I cannot stand anymore. And let me quote it similarly to what you finally described in the last chart.
But I came across about page 52, last paragraph, and this is what we can learn from that. Or what I take away is my learning for the European Parliament, a practical question is not whether European interests should matter. The question is rather how to ensure that interest alignment is guided by development objectives, partner ownership, and credible standards. This is what it is all about, and I recommend that for our staff, for our teams, and for our colleagues to be read and used very carefully and thoroughly.
Merci. Thank.
Hildegard Bentele
you. Would anyone else like to take the floor? I can't see anyone. So I will say a few words. I haven't studied your study, but I've listened very carefully to what you said.
And a number of our concerns have been confirmed in what you said because, as you said in your introduction, I come from the old world as it were. And, in the old world, we believed in values. And it was important to have a certain kind of approach to humanitarian aid. Even article 208, which calls for the eradication of poverty as a goal, seems to be abandoned at the present time. And so our worst fears have been confirmed.
And this is something we note in your study has confirmed this as a utilitarian gap now in European humanitarian policy. The link between development and external action in the EU is not a key concern. We talked about European values, and the answer used to be vague. And today, we say very clearly that what we want to do is promote the development of our own industries. And what we want to do when we have projects is to try to find partners on the ground to work with.
And if we can't find them on the ground, then we look for partners nearby or in another developing country to act as service providers. Now all this, this is what happened in the past, but it doesn't seem to be a priority today, and this is the reality we are confronted with. So my question to you, I'm sure you're familiar with the way in which the European Parliament works. We have a triple role. We're legislators.
We are currently examining the global Europe draft, which confirms the gap I identified. We have a political role to play that's in our initiative report. We also have a monitoring role. Now on this last point, the best elements which we can confirm in what you have described, I would say, its limitations is where we have a situation where member states vote on proposals from the commission on important responses, the European Parliament is excluded from that. Now I think the best monitoring system would not be abstracted from what is happening at this level, and this is the problem in the European Parliament.
Who is doing what when we have this very close reading of what is happening in the committees? We will have the confirmation. It maybe depends, but we'll have the confirmation of what we fear. So those are our worries. And, I'd like you to respond.
Do you think I'm exaggerating? Are we right to be worried? Looking at us as legislators in the field of development from my point of view, this new transactional approach is not good news. Okay. Unless the commission wants to take the floor.
We've got Mark Way, the head of unit of Impa. If you want, you can take the floor for 3 minutes. Is that okay for you? You could maybe speak for a bit longer because we've got time till 6:00.
Speaker 8
Honorable members, firstly, I'd like to thank the authors of the report. We exchanged, and I think, very timely reflections and very much we welcome this report and the invitation to the DEVA committee. I think it's not for me to explain the changing world we face. I think we all know the challenges of the geopolitical and geo economic situation. But I think what is very nice we put in this report is the different historical phases that we've seen in terms of development cooperation and the way that it has evolved over recent decades.
I think for us, it shows that development cooperation does not stand still and is not set in stone. And I think that is very nicely put in the report. So for us, for the European Commission, the policy is evolving. There has been a paradigm shift. I think we've all seen it, in the way that we approach international partnerships, looking beyond the donor-recipient dynamic that we've seen previously.
And I think in terms of the response to our partners, a very clear preference that we see. I think you saw that in Namibia, and you see that elsewhere in terms of reciprocity and that partnership, that collaboration. But it's also that paradigm shift is a recognition of the desire to reduce the EU's dependencies and to create benefits for European citizens. And I think as the authors of the report have just said, interest is not a new concept in development policy. This is also very much rooted in our assessment of the results on the ground.
I think you've heard this statistic before, but I repeat that since the inception of the least developed countries concept in 1971, only eight countries of the original 52 have graduated. The traditional donor-recipient country model has not achieved the results we need despite all our collective efforts. The countries that have seen most people lifted out of poverty are those that have invested in investment, infrastructure development, domestic manufacturing, and education, integrating into world trade and investment circuits. I think as has just been said both by the honorable members and also by the authors of the report, you know, the correct policy response, it's about getting that balance. It's not opposing, and I think that's what we very much appreciate in this report.
It's not about opposing values with interests or interests with values. It's about how do you find that right balance and how do you find that alignment that the chair has just, I think, set out. The complementarity and the mutual benefit priorities. So that's why for the European Commission, we don't look at international partnerships as just a global gateway. It is an increasingly important part, think as you all see, looking to address that investment gap both through public and private sector support.
But it does also mean, secondly, looking at supporting our partners to create decent jobs, comprehensive partnerships on migration. It means our engagement and our commitment to the most vulnerable in countries facing instability and complex settings. Focusing on the immediate needs, in terms of food, health, education, etcetera. And fourthly, it is about how we respond in this changing geopolitical situation on global initiatives and global funds, our commitment to multilateralism as a core element of our values. But the one constant that we have in all of this, and I want to underline that point, is the fundamental principles and the values as enshrined in the treaties that underpin everything we do.
So we have not de-prioritized our values. The eradication of poverty remains at the forefront of our policy response, and you will recall, I think both of you, the first paragraph of the mission letter of Commissioner Sicola says exactly that. So, yes, we see Global Gateway as central to our response towards the sustainable development goals. We've put in place a number of key elements. The inequality marker is just one example of that.
If we look even at global gateway in 2023, 42% of inter spending contributed to human development, far exceeding the 20% target. And I think it's also important to say that when we look at Global Gateway, we do it's a word I don't like to use in public because it's impossible to explain to a citizen the 360 degree approach, but it is this whole idea of looking beyond purely hard infrastructure and looking at the enabling environment, whether that be on sustainable and quality investments, human rights, climate emergency, etcetera, etcetera. Full respect for the ESG standards, which I think from our perspective is the element that sets us apart from many of the others that are also putting proposals on the table for our partners. Three examples of that, just to name them, whether it be the local production of health products in Africa, the MAF Plus initiative, whether that be digital connectivity in Kyrgyzstan as another example, or whether that be Green Amazon in Brazil. You take each one of those and dig into the detail, and you look beyond the pure hard infrastructure part, and you start to see the skills, education or in Kyrgyzstan the data protection or the e-governance or the digital skills that you're building into that particular proposal.
I think there you start to see a different proposition to ones that others are putting on the table. So to conclude, from our side, we believe this approach, making sure we get that balance, making sure we get that alignment with our key development principles, is one that can bring real tangible benefits and help us address the reality that ODA alone can't achieve all our objectives. So it is important that we look at this, you know, across the board. The feedback we get from our partner countries, whether that be in summits, in missions, in the joint mission that the commissioner has done with you in Namibia, whether it be in the Global Gateway Forum, is this is actually what they are asking for. They want a different proposition on the table.
And I think, that is, very much what we are trying to achieve. I won't go into all the individual recommendations and obviously issues from flexibility to ODA to transparency. Obviously, there are a number of key elements in the commission's proposal, whether that be in the horizontal regulation in terms of the gateway portal, whether it be in terms of some of the individual targets set out there. But I just want to finish with a real thanks to the authors. It's quite a substantial piece of research, and I'm sure a huge amount of work has gone into it.
And I would also like to thank from the commission side the openness that you showed to consult our views. We don't necessarily agree with every word, but that's not the point. It's really been a very collaborative exercise, and I want to thank you for that.
Hildegard Bentele
Thank you. Udo Bulman has asked for the floor to add some comments, and I'm sure you're going to respond to the commission.
Udo Bullmann
Minute, and thanks to the commission, for being with us and for commenting the study because I think it's also courageous to face the intellectual challenge. So I'm happy that you are here. I'm seriously grateful for your comments. For us in the European Parliament, of course, it's Charles and myself. It's not the first time to have sorts of debates like that.
Of course, we know the ideas behind strategic moves. To make the long story short, whether we come together and whether there is proof if the 300 so-called 360 degree approach is going to work or not is for me purely empirical. And to find proof whether it works or not, there is predominantly for me also one answer that is, and the study advises us to do that scrutiny, parliamentary scrutiny. And the LACMOS test for whether that is seriously meant by the commission is Global Gateway and Global Europe. Because only if we make use of the so-called inequality marker, providing the money and the support goes to the lower 40% of the population, our partner countries.
And only if we in the Global Europe concept are ready to establish relevant quantitative distributional assessment methodologies, techniques to measure what we are doing, there will be proof. Nobody believes anymore in trickle down, that is yesterday, and it was yesterday already wrong. So we need to give empirical proof of what we are doing. And in the constructive mindset of the study, I would hope that we can get there.
Hildegard Bentele
Before I give you the floor, I'd like to respond to what I've just heard, both from you and from the Commission as well. I think that expectations of those who want European interests in development, that these be taken into account. They often are, counter to what we say that we want. So if there's a link between the action which we undertake and human development. So looking at the global gateway and if that's going to become more structured, for example, to help a country in Africa to industrialize and look at that in relation to the link with human development.
But if that structural aspect, there has to be a response to the need to link with human development, a structural response. So access to social security. That's what we want. But listening to what's said on both sides of the argument, what we hear is all about doing business. So I think what we need to do needs to be more than Trump's transactional approach, and that needs to be clear to the outside world.
In the framework of this policy, then, we need to define from now the terms of reference for a good evaluation. And I agree with Udo on this. The terms of reference are very important. It needs to be a results orientated policy, and that's what we've been talking about just now, and I'm gonna stop there because we're running out of time. I thought we'd have a bit more time than we do, because, of course, we've got to have our coordinators meeting.
Speaker 3
Well, thank you very much for this constructive discussion and also for the praise the study has received. I really appreciate that, and I'm very grateful to hear that this is of use to the honorable members and to the commission as well. I won't go into much detail now, but I think we have moved to an integrated model already. We say in the study that a differentiated model that keeps development policy funding separate is also not a safeguard to protecting the policy field. So we need to work with the integrated model.
The three sixty degrees approach is something that came up repeatedly as an avenue of promise and, as a concept that should be further developed, where the procedures are perhaps not yet clear enough or it's not, or the institutionalization of it, but it was among our interview partners, viewed as something of potential, in that regard. In terms of priorities for the parliament, I think we share your worry, mister chairman, about preserving the development character of these instruments. We now have the Global Europe proposal on the table. And I think this will be the important test case of how this proceeds. It is notable that at the moment, there's sort of an absence of poverty reduction from the main objectives in the proposal.
Speaker 5
Also, disappearance of several development-specific targets, wider moves towards simplification, more flexibility. So there is going to be a need for finding a political compromise on that and for insisting on clear guardrails along the lines of what the study argued. And thank you also to the honorable member, Mister Bullman, for your point on language, which we don't delve too deeply into, but I think it's a very important point. And what we say is that this cursive element is quite significant, the way that development policies are talked about. So we argue that interests are not only sort of negotiated behind closed doors or openly, but they are also legitimized through public and bureaucratic language.
So phrases such as mutual interest, win-win partnerships, tackling the root causes of irregular migration, and strategic autonomy, they play an important role in rallying support and also sometimes in smoothing over tensions. So that we see as a challenge. They allow very different objectives, poverty reduction, export promotion, migration control, climate mitigation, critical raw materials and so on, the geopolitical role to be presented as something coherent, which it may not always be, as we point out. So thank you very much again for the feedback. Sorry for the length of the study, by the way.
Speaker 3
It's long, but we had fun engaging with the foundations and also sort of the historical legacy of European development policy. Thanks.
Does
Hildegard Bentele
Anyone have anything to raise under any other business before we close the meeting? If that's not the case, I close this part of our meeting, and we'll meet again in just a minute to go through the agendas of the further coordinators meeting.
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