Many view the dramatic shift in European Union development policy away from fighting poverty to winning a global race for investments and critical materials as a ship that has sailed, irreversible, a fait accompli. But not Barry Andrews.
In his Brussels office, the new chair of the European Parliament’s Development Committee delivered a message for those behind this controversial vision in the European Commission — the EU’s executive — that they have a “constitutional obligation” to fulfill, and they can be held to account for it.
On the face of it, there is little reason for the Irish politician’s self-declared “optimism,” given the second term won by commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the architect of the Global Gateway project at the heart of the investment-led strategy — and her new guidelines stating development must help propel the EU’s “economic foreign policy.”