European Union

The reg­u­la­tion estab­lish­ing the new ​“Neigh­bour­hood, Devel­op­ment and Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Instru­ment — Glob­al Europe” was pub­lished in the Offi­cial Jour­nal of the Euro­pean Union on 14 June 2021, end­ing sev­er­al years of nego­ti­a­tions. The Neigh­bour­hood, Devel­op­ment and Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Instru­ment (NDI­CI) replaces 7 Euro­pean Union finan­cial instru­ments and 3 funds and guar­an­tees relat­ed to exter­nal rela­tions, includ­ing the Euro­pean Devel­op­ment Fund, the Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood Instru­ment and the financ­ing instru­ment for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion. With an over­all finan­cial enve­lope of EUR79.5 bil­lion (in 2018 prices) for the 2021 – 2027 peri­od, the new instru­ment aims to increase pol­i­cy coher­ence and improve syn­er­gies and the flex­i­bil­i­ty of these inter­ven­tions. The new instru­ment will cov­er the Euro­pean Union’s coop­er­a­tion with all third coun­tries, with the excep­tion of the can­di­date coun­tries and the over­seas coun­tries and territories.

Dis­cus­sions on the reform of the Euro­pean finan­cial archi­tec­ture for devel­op­ment have con­tin­ued in the Coun­cil. The con­clu­sions of 14 June 2021 pave the way for clos­er coop­er­a­tion between nation­al, Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al finan­cial actors and insti­tu­tions engaged in devel­op­ment cooperation.

The Coun­cil has con­tin­ued to refine the Team Europe approach, which aims to com­bine the resources of the Euro­pean Union, its Mem­ber States and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, in par­tic­u­lar the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank and the Euro­pean Bank for Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment, in sup­port of shared objec­tives. Orig­i­nal­ly designed to high­light the Euro­pean Union’s com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing the effects of COVID-19 in third coun­tries, the con­cept quick­ly evolved to sig­ni­fy clos­er coop­er­a­tion between Euro­pean actors. The val­ues guid­ing the approach are Euro­pean sol­i­dar­i­ty with the part­ner coun­tries and Europe’s deter­mi­na­tion to play a lead­ing role in achiev­ing a sus­tain­able recov­ery. In gen­er­al, Lux­em­bourg has aligned itself with this approach and wel­comes the new dynam­ic it cre­ates for joint pro­gram­ming, as well as on the polit­i­cal lev­el, in terms of the Euro­pean Union’s role on the world stage.

The most con­crete exam­ple of the Team Europe approach is the ​“Team Ini­tia­tives”. Orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a set of flag­ship projects high­light­ing the joint efforts of all Euro­pean actors in one or two sec­tors in a part­ner coun­try, the con­cept evolved quick­ly and its details were clar­i­fied by the Coun­cil in its con­clu­sions of 23 April 2021.

In addi­tion, the Coun­cil adopt­ed con­clu­sions on ​“EU part­ner­ships with mid­dle-income coun­tries: oppor­tu­ni­ties for the devel­op­ment in tran­si­tion agen­da”; ​“Strength­en­ing Team Europe’s com­mit­ment to human devel­op­ment” on 14 June 2021 and the ​“Coun­cil con­clu­sions on water in the EU’s exter­nal action” on 19 Novem­ber 2021. Through­out the nego­ti­a­tions, Lux­em­bourg has shown a com­mit­ment to the impor­tance of the least-devel­oped coun­tries in devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion, and to ambi­tious lan­guage in rela­tion to human devel­op­ment, equi­table access to water and gen­der equal­i­ty, as well as sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health and rights.

In order to posi­tion Europe as a leader in the field of Dig­i­tal for Devel­op­ment (D4D), while pro­vid­ing a com­mon Euro­pean response to the chal­lenges of digi­ti­sa­tion, in Decem­ber 2020 the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion and 11EU Mem­ber States, includ­ing Lux­em­bourg, launched the D4D Hub. This ini­tia­tive serves as a mul­ti-stake­hold­er strate­gic plat­form for dig­i­tal coop­er­a­tion between Team Europe mem­bers and their glob­al part­ners, using a human-cen­tric approach to dig­i­tal transformation.

In this con­text, the African Union-Euro­pean Union (AU-EU) Dig­i­tal for Devel­op­ment (D4D) Hub project has also been signed and is being imple­ment­ed by five Euro­pean devel­op­ment agen­cies, includ­ing LuxDev SA. With EUR8 mil­lion under Euro­pean fund­ing, the project aims to help bridge the dig­i­tal divide, includ­ing the gen­der divide, and to use dig­i­tal inno­va­tions to fos­ter sus­tain­able and inclu­sive devel­op­ment in Africa. In addi­tion to the AU-EUD4D Hub, which became oper­a­tional in 2021, the D4D Hub has also offi­cial­ly launched its three region­al branch­es: for Asia-Pacif­ic, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, and Africa. In the Africa branch, Lux­em­bourg took the lead in the the­mat­ic work­ing group on cyber­se­cu­ri­ty in late 2021 and began the first dis­cus­sions on poten­tial projects in this area.

In the con­text of the response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it is also worth not­ing Luxembourg’s com­mit­ment to the COV­AX mech­a­nism (COVID-19 Vac­cines Glob­al Access), which is the third work­ing axis of the four work­ing axes in the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accel­er­a­tor (ACT Accel­er­a­tor, Act‑A). The ACT Accel­er­a­tor is a col­lab­o­ra­tive frame­work, not a new organ­i­sa­tion, and its goal is to end the pan­dem­ic as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. The ACT Accel­er­a­tor was cre­at­ed in April 2020, fol­low­ing an appeal by G20 lead­ers in March 2020. The enti­ties work­ing togeth­er under the ACT Accel­er­a­tor are: the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion, CEPI, FIND, Gavi, the Glob­al Fund, Uni­taid, Well­come, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion and the World Bank. The COV­AX mech­a­nism is led by Gavi and ensures the equi­table sup­ply of COVID-19 vac­cines. The COV­AX mech­a­nism includes the COV­AX Facil­i­ty, as well as the COV­AX advance mar­ket com­mit­ment (COV­AXAMC) financ­ing instru­ment. The COV­AX mar­ket com­mit­ment financ­ing instru­ment enables 92 low- and mid­dle-income economies to be sup­plied with donor-fund­ed dos­es of vaccine.

On 3 Jan­u­ary 2022, in the frame­work of Team Europe, Lux­em­bourg ini­ti­at­ed pro­ce­dures for the dona­tion of 605850 dos­es of vac­cines through the COV­AX mech­a­nism. In 2021 Lux­em­bourg also under­took to donate EUR4 mil­lion to sup­port the COV­AX mar­ket com­mit­ment instru­ment (COV­AXAMC). Team Europe was the largest ini­tial donor, with EUR853 mil­lion at the begin­ning of 2021, and in Decem­ber 2021 Team Europe’s con­tri­bu­tion to the COV­AX mar­ket com­mit­ment mech­a­nism stood at over EUR3 billion.