What is European Union development aid for? The sales pitch for the bloc’s new Belt-and-Road-beating “Global Gateway” investment plan is based on green and digital infrastructure investments designed to make the EU a geopolitical partner of choice, particularly in Africa.
But at least 93% of the spending under the regulation underpinning — in the absence of commitments from member states — the plan’s promised investments must be eligible to be counted as official development assistance.
That balance between soft power play and tackling poverty is clear in the opening sentences of the regulation — the €79.5 billion Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, or NDICI. Its first general objective is to “uphold and promote the Union’s values, principles and fundamental interests worldwide … thus contributing to the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty.”