It is a crunch point that threatens to take European Union development policy in a “very dangerous” direction, according to one senior Brussels politician — a “moment of risk” in the words of an expert aid NGO observer.
Both are talking about the looming elections to the European Parliament, to influence the world’s third-biggest international aid budget at a time when anti-aid and anti-migrant far-right parties are on the rise across the continent.
Over four days in early June, around 400 million people are eligible to vote to fill 720 seats in the Brussels-based legislature — triggering months of frenzied jostling to decide who will grab the EU’s top jobs and over the policy shake-ups that will follow.