Policy Coherence for Development in EU Development and Trade Policies

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has focused, since the establishment of the European Economic Community with the Treaty of Rome in 1957, on cooperation with developing countries, in particular with the former colonies of its Member States, the African Carabbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Whilst the principle of Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) emerged in the work of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in the EU political agenda since the early 1990s, it was only in the mid-2000s that it became the primary goal of EU development policy. This thesis will analyse firstly the evolution of EU development policy since the Treaty of Rome, in order to understand the broad context in which PCD emerged; secondly, I will try to explain how and why PCD emerged, how it has been defined, who are the actors, both within the EU and at a multilateral level, that committed to the principle, what are the specific policy instruments that they adopt to implement it and also how it is assessed the level of coherence achieved, in order to understand whether the European Union does successfully promote and apply the principle in its development policy; and finally, I will analyse the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) as a case study for determining whether the EU successfully translated its commitments towards PCD into practice in its relations with the ACP countries, fostering their development through trade policy.