European Policy for Global Development

The European Union is a key actor in international development cooperation encompassing both bilateral and multilateral features. The Union is an actor in its own as much as it is a central forum for its member states. The overall interest is thus in the functioning of the EU as a multilevel system in external relations, i.e. on both EU institutions and on selected member states, as well as in its interaction with partner countries and organisations.

The research focus is on future challenges the EU will have to face as a system (contributing to scenario building), as well as on new initiatives, instruments (aid effectiveness) and on the institutional setup (aid architecture). Joint research focus within this project are the relationship between development policy and other policies impacting on partner countries, i.e. the projects looks into coherence and coordination at EU level around two thematic areas (trade/security) and their relation to development policy, as well as the challenge of an emerging actor in this field.

The project works particularly on the institutional dimension and on coherence for development and thus focuses on the international and domestic (European) level.