On Wednesday 4 September, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, defended the achievements of the European Development Policy over the last five years before the newly elected members of the European Parliament’s Development Committee (DEVE).
According to its chairman, Barry Andrews (Renew Europe, Irish), the DEVE Committee expressed its concern about the evolution of development policies, particularly with regard to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and an EU economic and trade foreign policy “likely to create confusion with development policy”.
The Commissioner began by explaining the background to her appointment in 2019. “My task was to bring about a genuine revolution in the EU’s international development policy. The idea was to move away from the ‘donor-recipient’ model and have a genuine partnership based on mutual interest”, she said.
Ms Urpilainen also drew attention to the challenges posed by conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic: “‘Team Europe’ (see EUROPE 12703/13) has mobilised €53 billion 700 million to help partner countries recover from the pandemic and launch a recovery effort. This has become the backbone of our commitment, the model for our ‘Global Gateway’ strategy (see EUROPE 12844/7).”
The Commissioner also spoke about the signing of the Samoa Agreement between the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (see EUROPE 13293/19), the revised partnership between Africa and the EU (see EUROPE 12894/1) and the EU’s commitments on education, health and women’s rights. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)