European Union

The nego­ti­a­tions that start­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2018 for a suc­ces­sor agree­ment to the Coto­nou Agree­ment have con­tin­ued in the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union (EU) and with the Africa Caribbean and Pacif­ic (ACP) coun­tries. Fol­low­ing the polit­i­cal agree­ment of Octo­ber 2020, the agree­ment was ini­tialled in April 2021 by the chief nego­tia­tors of the EU and the ACP coun­tries, mark­ing the end of for­mal nego­ti­a­tions. It should be not­ed that, because of delays, the cur­rent agree­ment has had to be extend­ed until 30 June 2023 and tran­si­tion­al mea­sures have been put in place to avoid a legal vac­u­um pend­ing the for­mal sign­ing of the Post-Coto­nou agree­ment, expect­ed to take place in 2023.

The Coun­cil con­tin­ued to fol­low up on the new ​“Neigh­bour­hood, Devel­op­ment and Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Instru­ment — Glob­al Europe” (NDI­CI). With a total bud­get of EUR79.5 bil­lion (in 2018 prices) for the years 2021 – 2027, EUR14481 mil­lion was dis­bursed in 2021 for offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA), rep­re­sent­ing 97% of the EU exter­nal action bud­get. Lux­em­bourg, which defend­ed the main­te­nance of a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the exter­nal bud­get for ODA dur­ing the dis­cus­sions on the intro­duc­tion of the new instru­ment, there­fore wel­comes this out­come, which goes well beyond the 93% tar­get­ed by the NDI­CI reg­u­la­tion. The year 2022 also saw the start of imple­men­ta­tion of the Euro­pean Fund for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Plus (EFSD+), the new Euro­pean Union invest­ment instru­ment. In the first call for ten­ders, 20 Euro­pean devel­op­ment finance insti­tu­tions received bud­get guar­an­tees totalling EUR6.05 billion.

Under the French Pres­i­den­cy of the Coun­cil of the EU from Jan­u­ary to June 2022, dis­cus­sions focused on the harm­ful con­se­quences for devel­op­ing coun­tries of the Russ­ian war of aggres­sion against Ukraine. Dur­ing the nego­ti­a­tions for the Coun­cil con­clu­sions in con­nec­tion with the Euro­pean response to glob­al food inse­cu­ri­ty, Lux­em­bourg sought to ensure strong sup­port for the least devel­oped coun­tries (LDCs) and those most affect­ed by increas­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. To that end, the EU Mem­ber States urgent­ly mobilised EUR600 mil­lion through funds de-com­mit­ted from the 10^th and 11^th Euro­pean Devel­op­ment Funds (EDF) in May 2022.

Out­side the devel­op­ing coun­tries, the EU has shown sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ukraine and has repeat­ed­ly expressed its will­ing­ness to sup­port Ukraine as long as nec­es­sary. At the human­i­tar­i­an lev­el, the EU has so far sup­port­ed Ukraine with EUR485 mil­lion, of which EUR371 mil­lion has already been paid out. Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tion in this area amounts to EUR12224500, includ­ing EUR4 mil­lion for con­tri­bu­tions in kind (such as telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and med­ical equipment).

As a pri­or­i­ty of the French Pres­i­den­cy, the EU Coun­cil adopt­ed con­clu­sions on the EU’s renewed part­ner­ship with the LDCs. Dur­ing the nego­ti­a­tions for this text, Lux­em­bourg recalled the com­mit­ments of all EU Mem­ber States set at UN lev­el to bring their allo­ca­tions to LDCs to 0.20% of gross nation­al income, in the long term. While it abides by this fig­ure, Lux­em­bourg encour­aged oth­er EU Mem­ber States to increase their con­tri­bu­tions to offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance to effec­tive­ly com­bat (extreme) poverty.

The Czech Pres­i­den­cy of the Coun­cil of the EU from July to Decem­ber 2022 focused on bet­ter coor­di­na­tion between human­i­tar­i­an activ­i­ties and devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion, notably through the pro­duc­tion of a prac­ti­cal guide on the imple­men­ta­tion of the human­i­tar­i­an-devel­op­ment nexus. In addi­tion, the Coun­cil suc­ceed­ed in adopt­ing con­clu­sions on dis­as­ter risk reduc­tion and the youth action plan 2022 – 2027. Togeth­er with its like-mind­ed part­ners, Lux­em­bourg was par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­i­ty dur­ing the nego­ti­a­tions of these Coun­cil con­clu­sions, in full accor­dance with its fem­i­nist for­eign policy.

With the launch of the Euro­pean Commission’s new Glob­al Gate­way strat­e­gy in Decem­ber 2021, 2022 also served to inte­grate the Team Europe approach into this new geopo­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy. The Glob­al Gate­way seeks to go beyond tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion by try­ing to align Euro­pean strate­gic inter­ests with the inter­ests of our part­ners. Thus, the Glob­al Gate­way has five key areas, name­ly the dig­i­tal sec­tor; cli­mate and ener­gy; trans­port; health; and edu­ca­tion and research. This new exter­nal invest­ment strat­e­gy active­ly seeks to do more to incor­po­rate the pri­vate sec­tor, with the aim of broad­en­ing the financ­ing bases of its exter­nal action. Thus, the Glob­al Gate­way should enable the EU’s part­ners to devel­op their soci­eties and economies, but should also enable the pri­vate sec­tors of EU Mem­ber States to invest and remain com­pet­i­tive, while abid­ing by the high­est envi­ron­men­tal and labour stan­dards, as well as sound finan­cial man­age­ment. In this con­text, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion expects that Team Europe, i.e. the insti­tu­tions, the EU Mem­ber States and the devel­op­ment banks, will mobilise up to EUR300 bil­lion in invest­ments in the five above pri­or­i­ty areas by 2027. The Glob­al Gate­way is a strat­e­gy to be imple­ment­ed joint­ly by all mem­bers of Team Europe, includ­ing all con­tri­bu­tions under the NDI­CI — Glob­al Europe and the EFSD+, as well as those made by the Mem­ber States. Lux­em­bourg is active­ly con­tribut­ing to this through its par­tic­i­pa­tion in var­i­ous Team Europe Ini­tia­tives (TEIs), in line with the objec­tives of the Glob­al Gate­way, includ­ing edu­ca­tion and research, while stay­ing true to its prin­ci­ple of untied aid and ensur­ing that devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ues to reach the most deprived pop­u­la­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in LDCs.

In the frame­work of the Euro­pean Union — African Union Sum­mit, which took place from 17 to 18 Feb­ru­ary 2022, the EU adopt­ed its first invest­ment pack­age under the Glob­al Gate­way for the African con­ti­nent. A sim­i­lar invest­ment pack­age was also unveiled at the EU-Asso­ci­a­tion of South­east Asian Nations (ASEAN) sum­mit on 15 Decem­ber 2022.