1 Introduction
1. The Committee keeps a watching brief on European
Union development issues. Given the competences of the European
Union, EU development issues often naturally intersect with EU
trade issues. It is in that context that we went to Brussels in
January 2007 to take evidence from the European Commission on
development policy generally and on international trade negotiations.
We have drawn on that evidence and on our previous work to prepare
this Report as an update on these policy issues.
2. Chapter 2 considers the impact of some recent
changes and other current issues in EU development policy. We
examine the European Consensus on Development and how this has
guided policy in the year since its adoption. We look ahead to
plans for establishing 'Millennium Development Goal Contracts'
with developing countries and to the Department for International
Development's central role in that process. We also cover EU and
UK policy on aid for trade, that part of development assistance
which aims to build the capacity of developing countries to trade
effectively.
3. Our Report last year into aspects of the negotiations
on the World Trade Organisation Doha Development Round focused
on the issues which we considered central to a deal which had
development at its heart.[1]
We supported an ambitious outcome for the Round and concluded
that an improved EU offer on agriculture was key to unlocking
the Round for developing countries. We published the Report after
the Hong Kong Ministerial at which negotiators remained too divided
on key issues to produce more than a statement of general principles.
We have followed the progress of the Round since that time and
Chapter 3 addresses this progress.
4. The previous International Development Committee
held an inquiry into the negotiations on the Economic Partnership
Agreements between the EU and regional groupings of African, Caribbean
and Pacific (ACP) countries.[2]
The Committee expressed concern that these negotiations, central
to the EU's relationship with developing countries, were not being
given the attention they deserved. Our predecessors challenged
the Government to use its 2005 Presidency of the EU to turn the
negotiations around and to guarantee that the poorest countries
had real choices to enable them to use trade for their own development.
Chapter 4 examines subsequent developments in the negotiations.
5. We are grateful to those who gave evidence to
the Committee: Mr Bernard Petit, Deputy Director-General for
Development of the European Commission and officials from that
Directorate-General; and the Rt Hon Peter Mandelson, European
Commissioner for Trade, and his officials. We also held informal
discussions in Brussels with Ambassadors and other representatives
from Barbados, Dominica, Fiji, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria
and Senegal, and with Glenys Kinnock, Nirj Deva, Fiona Hall and
Jürgen Schröder, members of the European Parliament
Committee on Development, and David Martin, a member of the European
Parliament Committee on International Trade. We are grateful
to them for the opportunity to exchange views.
1 International Development Committee, Third Report
of Session 2005-06, The WTO Hong Kong Ministerial and the Doha
Development Agenda, HC 730 Back
2
International Development Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2004-05,
Fair trade? The European Union's trade agreements with African,
Caribbean and Pacific countries, HC 68 Back
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