Inside the Council of the EU's 2021 development priorities

European Union states will focus on human development, the debate over development cooperation with middle-income countries, and how to roll out the “Team Europe” approach over the next six months, according to a work program seen by Devex. The document sets out the priorities for Portugal, which holds the rotating position leading the bloc’s agenda until the end of June. Team Europe Even as the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined EU hopes for a fresh start with African countries in 2020, the European Commission used its response to the health crisis to launch Team Europe — an attempt to get big and small member states, the commission itself, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to better work in concert. Now, as the commission’s country programming for 2021-2027 gets underway, the Portuguese development agenda states that the main challenge is “how to close the policy-to-practice gap whilst also identifying challenges from the [member states].” Beyond the social media hashtag — partly designed to help Europe counter Chinese influence in Africa — EU member states still have questions about how the new dynamic, including plans for large-scale Team Europe initiatives, will work. The Portuguese presidency says it will deliver an “analytical paper” on the topic. Another challenge is how to bring smaller EU countries with much more modest aid budgets into the fold. Quizzed by the European Parliament at the end of last year on which national development agencies were receiving the most EU contracts, the commission reported that Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany accounted for 82% of the total in 2010 and 84% in 2019. Jan Slíva, head of the Czech Development Agency, told national radio last month, for instance, that his main focus in coming years is better connecting Czech aid with European projects. “We would like to join Team Europe ... and play a major role in implementing European projects,” he said. “So, this is something that we will focus on in the coming years, and we would like Czech Aid to be a proud and integral part of Team Europe.” Middle-income countries The Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU will prepare another analytical paper on cooperation with middle-income countries, which has been the subject of ongoing reflections between EU member states. “Entrenched and diverging, yet legitimate, perspectives of EU MS [member states] on how to approach a much needed update to cooperation with MIC [middle-income countries] have hampered change, in particular due to concerns that this may lead to diverting resources from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and countries most in need,” the program states. “The Portuguese Presidency will bring a new impetus to the policy debate on how to better frame cooperation with MIC under the NDICI [the EU’s new Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument] and the new European Consensus on Development, including with countries that have graduated or will soon be transitioning from LDC to Lower- Middle-Income Countries (LMIC), making full use of the EU’s toolbox.” One member state official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Devex that recent EU policy documents reflect an increasing interest in MICs. The “technical reasoning” is that a bigger number of the world’s lowest-income people live in MICs and that “our support makes a bigger difference in MICs, not fragile [states].” The source said the minority of states opposed to this shift was dwindling. COVID-19 may also be accelerating that change. An analysis by Mikaela Gavas, co-director for development cooperation in Europe at the Center for Global Development, found that EU institutions committed 48% of their official development assistance to lower-middle-income countries last year as part of the response to the pandemic, up from 25% in 2018. ODA to low-income countries slipped from 28% to 15% over the same period. Human development In recent years, as the European Union has embraced new tools, such as budget guarantees, as well as new topics, such as digitalization, some have expressed concern for the fate of sectors more commonly associated with development work, like grants for health and education. Portugal is seeking to debunk that dichotomy, however, arguing in the document that “Human Development is more than ‘charity’ or a traditional development sector and can contribute to the EU’s wider political objectives and interests, especially in a post-COVID world.” It will aim to ensure the Team Europe initiatives also take into account these sectors. And it could have a handy ally in Jutta Urpilainen, EU commissioner for international partnerships. A center-left Finnish politician and former teacher, Urpilainen committed last year to increase EU spending on education in countries under her purview from 7% to 10%. The report on the report Long-awaited by some, the independent consultants’ study into the October 2019 report on the division of labor between EIB and EBRD — updating the 2010 Camdessus report, which covered similar territory — is due in February. COVID-19 deflated talk of a new EU development bank, but expect both EBRD and EIB to step up their lobbying efforts toward member states as the latter prepare their conclusions on the “Feasibility Study on Options for Strengthening the Future European Financial Architecture for Development.”