European Aid Coordination in Africa: Is the Commission Calling the Tune?

Abstract

International development cooperation policy is one of the oldest policy areas within what is today the European Union (EU). It has undergone many changes hand in hand with new development ideologies and the entry of new EU member states. When entering into force in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty formally introduced development policy as a European Union competence. The Treaty establishes the idea that the development engagements of the EU should be coordinated and coherent and that the European Commission should have a complementary role to the member states (shared competence). As such, the European Commission formally gained a double role, which makes it a somewhat unique development actor. While the Commission is a multilateral donor in its own right, with a distinct expertise in well-identified areas of preference, its key added value is claimed to lie in its ability to coordinate and harmonise the aid policies of the EU member states (also see Orbie in this volume).