After Lisbon: Streamlining EU development cooperation
Speakers:
Elmar Brok MEP - Member of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rapporteur on the Institutional Aspects of the European External Action Service and Trustee of Friends of Europe
Paul Engel – Director, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM)
Simon Maxwell - Senior Research Associate, Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
Poul Skytte Christoffersen - Special Advisor to HR Baroness Ashton on the European External Action Service (EEAS)
Chair:
Giles Merritt - Secretary General of Friends of Europe
Description
The Lisbon treaty and the advent of the EU’s ambitious new EEAS and European diplomatic service offer an opportunity to reinvigorate Europe’s international development efforts. New global challenges are emphasising the need for concerted action and multilateralism, so coherent thinking and collaboration between the EU’s institutions and the member states, is of major importance.
How can Europe’s policymakers ensure there will be a greater commitment to collective action at EU level? What needs to be done to make sure the EU lives up to its commitments and the Lisbon treaty’s new structures and new legal framework? What sort of consistent approach should be adopted? In global terms, what kind of partnerships are needed with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and rising powers in Asia and South America? Does the European Think-Tanks Group’s February 2010 report “New Challenges, New Beginnings” offer the sort of answers needed?