Brussels, 11/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - In the opinion of CONCORD, the European confederation of relief and development NGOs, the first anniversary of the European External Action Service (EEAS) will be the occasion of the first-class burial of the objectives of the fight against poverty, even though these are the ultimate point of the development policy (see EUROPE 10528). And with good reason: development policy is not integrated into the EEAS, the NGO network laments, in a report published on 10 January on the subject EEAS one year on: “Work in progress” for poverty eradication.
Above and beyond the criticism it makes of the failure to respect the duty of coherence of development-serving policies, even though these are included in the Treaty of Lisbon, and the risk that the development policy will be sacrificed on the altar of security policies and familiar national interests, the report identifies five ways of remedying the problems.
CONCORD argues that the EU should continuously explain the development cooperation policy of the EU and its interaction with security and human rights policies; that the roles of the European Commission and the EEAS in programming development aid should be clarified; that the coherence of various sectorial policies (climate, trade, energy, agriculture, migration and finance) at the service of development must become a reality; and that expertise in development issues should be honed at all levels in the institutions, including the EEAS.
“In regions such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, anti-terrorism and security operations have been prioritised with little consideration to long-term development efforts. Catherine Ashton and her colleagues need to realise that while poverty remains, conflict and instability will always find fertile ground. We're also concerned that development policy risks being instrumentalised for self-interest policies. One year on (Ed: in the life of the EEAS), there is still no clarity on how the European Commission and the EEAS will coordinate €11 billion in development programming. Our report shows that competition rather than cooperation prevails between the two institutions”, said Klavdja Cernilogar of CONCORD.
Laura Sullivan, of the NGO ActionAid, considers for her part that “thanks to the EEAS, the EU has people on the ground who are able to take the measure of the damage caused by its policies. In its ignorance of this problem, the EU has been turning its back on its responsibilities in the global fight against poverty.”
The report by CONCORD is the critical response to the report by the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy which was published on 5 January (under Article 13 of the decision which instituted the EEAS) on the functioning of the EEAS. (AN/transl.fl)