United in diversity? Analysing behaviour expectations of the European Union as a non-state member of the OECD’s development assistance committee

Abstract

The European Union (EU) frequently accentuates its position as the largest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA). Together with the EU institutions, EU Member States represent 21 of the 30 members of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) that sets out rules and standards for what can be reported as ODA. Following the EU Treaty's requirement for the EU to work together in international organisations, research has detected a tentative yet positive trend to this end in different international organisations (IOs). This article's empirical analysis shows no such trend can be detected in the EU's engagement in the DAC. Explanatory factors include divergent development cooperation approaches inside the EU, discrepancies between the established image of and everyday practice in the DAC, and the EU's full DAC membership. The findings add to the literature on international organisation governance by exploring different behaviour expectations of non-state membership vis-à-vis that of states. KEYWORDSEuropean Union (EU); international organisations; development cooperation; organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD); development assistance committee (DAC); official development assistance (ODA)

Making a difference in multilateral negotiations: the European Union and the global agenda on aid effectiveness

“…6 The impact of the European Union at HLF-2 (Paris) was significant. The EC succeeded in bringing together the EU member states, drawing on the report of the Ad Hoc Working Party on Harmonization: "a common position was developed on the spot, which was eventually read by the Luxembourg Presidency on behalf of the European Union" (Interview 3, April 2009; see also Keijzer & Verschaeve, 2018). 7 In the words of a European official from one of the Nordic countries: "Originally, we were sceptical about anything the European Commission proposed.…”

“…This equilibrium was altered in the early 2010s when various EU actors (starting with the EC) opted to pursue different agendas and pull in different directions. This change is reflected in the tone of the revised European Consensus on Development signed in June 2017: the EU reiterated its determination to act united, yet the language used was more that of "unity in diversity", with stronger emphasis placed on "respective comparative advantage" (Bergmann et al, 2019;Keijzer & Verschaeve, 2018). Paradoxically, EU- Note: "+" and "-" are used to make comparisons easier.…”

“…Most scholars tend to emphasize the constraints arising from the issue of parallel competence and EU member states' lack of willingness to coordinate even when collective action is desirable, which have weakened the potential influence of the EU in multilateral settings (cf. Carbone, 2017;Farrell, 2008;Keijzer & Verschaeve, 2018;Orbie et al, 2017). The issue of aid effectivenesssimilar to what happened with the issue of financing for development (Carbone, 2007) and, in part, with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Orbie, 2020) clearly demonstrates that the EU had a significant impact in at least two of the most important multilateral negotiations in international development since the turn of the century, much more than is acknowledged by development analysts (cf.…”

“…Abdel-Malek, 2015;Atwood, 2012;Brown, 2020): this was the case of the negotiations that resulted in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action. In doing so, rather than being in the shadow of international organizations (Orbie et al, 2017), the EU challenged the lead of the DAC, and the EC that of the DAC Secretariat, which is generally treated as the driving force on aid effectiveness (Keijzer & Verschaeve, 2018;Verschaeve & Orbie, 2018). Interestingly, some officials from the DAC Secretariat argued that the EU, acting collectively, simplified their work in brokering agreements with non-EU donors (Interviews 27 and28, April 2009, Interviews 36 and37, June 2012; see also Manning, 2008).…”

The Future of EU Development Policy Post-2020

“…This is complicated by the fact that development policy, like much of EU external action, is underpinned by norms (Orbie and Carbone 2016;Lightfoot and Kim 2018;Steingass 2019). The key to action thus far has been designing the most effective combination of policy tools to deploy in key theatres and sectors helping the EU become a more effective development actor (see Ehrhart and Petretto 2014: 180;Keijzer and Verschaeve 2018). The current plan is to follow this with a better alignment of the money in the development budget to the global ambitions of the EU.…”