Since its basis, the European Union has loved a repute as one of the crucial benevolent suppliers of improvement assist to a few of the world’s poorest nations. In 2022, the bloc and its member states spent a complete of 98 billion euros, or roughly $120 billion, on improvement and humanitarian funding, making the EU as soon as once more the world’s largest assist donor.
Behind the headline numbers, nonetheless, a extra advanced and self-serving image of the bloc’s assist coverage was revealed final April, when a European Fee briefing doc that advocated for linking improvement assist selections to the bloc’s strategic pursuits was leaked to the media. The doc was roundly criticized by improvement companies, together with CONCORD, the European NGO Confederation for Aid and Growth, which derided its contents as “a sellout of worldwide cooperation.”
Whereas the leaked doc is unusually express in its language, emphasizing the necessity to interact the EU’s strategic companions “with a coverage combine pushed by financial curiosity” relatively than conventional improvement approaches, the overall thrust of the textual content can hardly have come as a whole shock. In spite of everything, as Vince Chadwick—a senior reporter at DEVEX—factors out, the fee has been “telegraphing its want to align international assist with strategic pursuits for fairly a while.”
