This article argues that, by acting autonomously and cohesively, the European Union (EU) was able to shape the global agenda on foreign aid throughout the 2000s, particularly on the issue of donor complementarity and division of labour. By contrast, its ability to promote aid effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa was significantly constrained by national aid bureaucracies and by the complex aid architecture. More generally, to fully understand whether or not the EU is an effective actor, it is necessary to take into account how EU actorness contributes to the issue being discussed. At headquarter level, the European Commission sought to enhance EU actorness, which was seen as key to aid effectiveness. On the ground, national aid bureaucracies resisted EU actorness in the name of aid effectiveness.
This article discusses the trajectory of policy coherence for development (PCD) in the European Union (EU). In particular, it argues that the strong focus on institutional mechanisms, conceived as a way of overcoming different types of resistance, has had the effect that results achieved have by no means been commensurate with the expectations raised by the various reforms launched over the years. EU Member States have paid lip-service to the importance of PCD without translating commitments into more coherent (national and supranational) policies. Moroever, through an analysis of the Impact Assessment (IA) -the principal mechanism to promote PCD at EU level -prepared for the reform of the EU's agricultural and fisheries policies in 2011-2013 it shows how bureaucratic arrangements have substantially failed to clarify the real impact of EU policies on (different types of) developing countries. The conclusion is that successful promotion of PCD is more than just having the right arguments and ensuring sufficient technical support, but is first and foremost a political undertaking.
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