On Monday 28 November in Brussels, the Foreign Affairs Council held its development meeting. This meeting outlined a number of possible priorities for future European development policy up to 2030, as set out by the UN, such as the underlying reasons for migration and the promotion of gender equality.
A majority of the member states at the meeting were represented by their respective ambassadors (16 out of 28). Participants reached an agreement on the following priorities: tackling the underlying causes of migration; increasing emphasis on women’s empowerment and gender equality; improved coordination of aid; enhancing cooperation with civil society and involving the private sector more in development cooperation; improving the transition between humanitarian aid and development aid; prioritising less-developed countries that have more need for assistance, whilst continuing to help countries on intermediate revenues.
The European Commissioner for International Co-operation and Development, Neven Mimica, gave a brief presentation of the European Commission’s recent communication calling for a new “European Consensus on Development”. According to one diplomatic source (see EUROPE 11673), this consensus promotes a shared vision of this policy between the EU institutions and member states and received a positive response.
Countries represented by the respective ministers included: Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Sweden, Czech Republic, Portugal and Slovenia.
The future European Consensus on Development seeks to reorientate future EU policy on the lines of the universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) up to 2030 and respond more appropriately to the current challenges of migration and security. The European Commission is hoping that a joint statement from the Council, Parliament and Commission will be able to effectively set out this new “European Consensus” in May 2017. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)