This is an English translation of an interview that CONCORD’s Director, Tanya Cox, gave to Jacob Langvad for Danish newspaper Globalnyt.

Tanya Cox
Director of CONCORD

The upcoming European Parliament elections appear to favour a variety of right-wing candidates who share a common goal: reducing the EU’s development policy ambitions.

This worries Tanya Cox, Director of the Brussels-based umbrella organisation for European development organisations, CONCORD.

‘The fear of a future shift to the right may sound like crying wolf,’ she admits. In the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament elections, there were also fears of a rightward shift, which did not materialise.

It ended with a sigh of relief five years ago. But since then, more right-wing governments have come to power at the Member State level. So we’ll probably see a real shift this time. “It could also mean that more of the 27 Commissioners in the European Commission will come from the right flank,” says Tanya Cox.

She has a background at Save the Children and Human Rights Watch. In 2019, she took over the leadership of CONCORD, which has Global Focus as its Danish member. 

“The biggest change since the last election is that a war has broken out just outside the EU’s external borders,” she explains. “This has created a much greater focus on security and defence in EU policy towards the rest of the world.” 

“The more geopolitical-strategic approach to the Commission’s work is likely to intensify over the next five years. The trend that we already started to see with the EU Global Gateway initiative is that there is a blurring between foreign policy and what used to be development cooperation policy,” she says, elaborating: 

“We are seeing a blurring of the line between foreign policy and international cooperation, and in particular, the money that was allocated to international cooperation to support partner countries is now being spent more on geopolitical strategic areas.” 

Cox emphasises that when she uses the words ‘development’ and ‘international cooperation’ she refers to ODA (official development aid), the EU’s support and cooperation with partner countries. 

One of the innovations on the cards is that from this autumn, the European Commission will for the first time create a new commissioner post responsible for security and defence: 

“The question is what this will mean in terms of prioritising budgets and where EU money goes. There will be a lot of competition and pressure on what used to be ODA funds, which have always focused on people,” says Tanya Cox. 

She sees the same risk for the green transition, which has been a priority for the last five years for the European Commission under the leadership of Ursula Von der Leyen. 

A concrete example of the new trend is the cost of Ukrainian refugees: 

“The money spent by Member States to address the challenges of refugees, shelter, food, etc., is counted as ODA. While no EU member state is necessarily going directly against the rules here, the problem is that ODA is not earmarked for those purposes. Instead, the funds are supposed to benefit the EU’s partner countries,” says Cox, referring to the latest Aid Watch 2023 report.

“There is a blurring between foreign policy and what used to be development cooperation policy.”

Tanya Cox

Partner countries will need to go the extra mile 

Amidst this shift, the significant change in China’s position of strength and global role as an investor and donor has meant that the EU is not the only player in the field, although EU countries still account for the majority of global development aid. This provides more opportunities and places greater demands on countries working with the EU.

“In the future, EU partner countries will have to do more to find out what they want before they negotiate with the EU. This is something that hasn’t really happened enough; the EU comes very well prepared and says ‘this is what we can offer, sign on the dotted line if you want,’’’ says Tanya Cox. 

However, partner countries are better prepared than before, she believes. 

“Partner countries have previously thought that it might be better than nothing. But already now, EU partner countries are better able to say what they want and what they don’t want because they have options that they are using,” says Cox.

“EU partner countries need to do more to find out what they want before they negotiate with the EU.”

Tanya Cox

She cites the EU’s Africa strategy, adopted in 2020, as an example of how there was no negotiation or consultation with partner countries at that time.

“The EU still thinks it can afford this approach, where you just have an internal dialogue and then decide. I’m not on the inside of the EU negotiating table, so I don’t know what exactly is going on in their heads and why they think they can afford it. I think it should be clear that the EU can no longer afford that approach if the EU thinks clearly about how this working method makes partner countries react. 

Less room for NGOs

As an example of how partner countries react to not being included, Cox cites the UN vote where the EU was surprised by how many of its partner countries did not follow suit and support the EU’s condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The writing is on the wall, but the EU does not seem to realise that it needs a much more cooperative and dialogue-based approach that respects the interests of partner countries. But perhaps the UN vote will somehow create a turning point,’ says Tanya Cox. 

Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary elections, Cox is concerned that civil society voices will be less heard in the future EU. 

We are keen to elect MEPs who understand the importance of civil society, democracy, and keeping the negotiating space more open. In Brussels, we see that space shrinking, both in terms of how much we are able to influence debates and the amount of information we can access.” 

Tanya Cox sees several explanations for why the space is shrinking. 

“Sometimes it reflects a kind of imagined time pressure (at the EU), but other times it’s a strategy to remove too many annoying voices that interfere along the way. We are a box that just needs to be ticked. It’s very frustrating, it’s not democratic and it’s particularly disappointing that the Commission is moving in that direction,’ concludes Cox.

 

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