By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, May 20 2003 (IPS)

The new constitution for the European Union, which is currently being drawn up, must not compromise humanitarian aid and development policy, say civil society groups.

They fear that the development policy of the 15-nation European Union (EU), which provides aid to developing countries across the world, would become increasingly dwarfed by its external relations agenda, especially foreign, trade, immigration and security policies.

This anxiety is being expressed by members of several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), led by BOND, the British Overseas NGO for Development.

"Convention talks have been dominated by narrow commercial and security agendas. Yet we, as Europeans, know from our own history that stability, peace and prosperity cannot be built on exclusion;" said Richard Bennett, general secretary of BOND Monday.

Addressing a ministerial conference, he said: "The Convention should strengthen and safeguard the political space for development, not undermine it."

The Convention on the Future of Europe, a group of representatives from each of the 15 member states of the EU under the former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, are currently preparing proposals for a new constitution for Europe to respond to the changing needs of a growing and evolving EU.

In recent years the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has developed rapidly to enable it reach its external policy aims and overcome recent European divisions over international events such as the war in Iraq.

Last year the EU’s Development Council, which met twice a year to decide on matters relating to the policy for international development assistance, was abolished and has since been subsumed under a new General Affairs and External Relations Council.

Now the Convention on the Future of Europe has made further proposals which, development NGOs say further undermine the status of development as an EU policy area with its own objectives and instruments.

These proposals include the classification of development cooperation as an ‘instrument’ in EU ‘external action’. Civil society groups say that this compromises the nature and amount of aid given by the EU.

The draft Treaty text also suggests that development cooperation be incorporated into a new Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and that a single Foreign Affairs representative controls EU development aid and what it is used for.

NGOs have called on the Convention to create a separate chapter for development policy in the final Treaty, which is due to be presented in June, refocusing EU aid on the Least Developed Countries.

"Across Europe the trend is to subordinate development policies and institutions to trade and security goals. Aid is for poverty reduction and sustainable development, not propping up allies in a war on terror, economic partners on our borders or preventing immigration. We risk confusing different and even conflicting means and ends," said Mikaela Gavas, the policy officer for BOND.

While BOND, a network of 270 NGOs, welcomed the work of the European Convention at a crucial time in the evolution of Europe’s role in international development, it expressed its concerns over the EU’s external role and stressed the need to make institutional changes in order to ensure that the Union is more inclusive and accountable to the world’s poor.

Joanna Macrae from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Britain’s leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian issues, expressed fears that the way aid is delivered may also change under new convention rules.

She said that the core principles of humanitarian aid – impartiality, neutrality and independence risked being compromised – if a more integrated development policy is adopted.

"The danger is that aid will become a vehicle for winning hearts and minds and that is a great concern. We have politicised humanitarianism instead of humanitarian politics. This is a great worry because access could diminish as well as the efficacy of aid and ethics," she said.

Ben Soetendorp, an EU foreign policy expert from Lieden University, insisted that the proposed CFSP should be changed, saying that the EU’s ambition to counterweight U.S. power was "unachievable".

"The EU will never qualify as a superpower," he said.

The European Commission, represented by Barbara Brandtner, a member of EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten’s Cabinet, defended the Convention’s proposals but reassured the room that humanitarian assistance under ECHO, the EU’s humanitarian aid office, should remain separate.

"Development is one of the most important issues in foreign relations and we are committed to it. It should be able to exist under its own rules but we need to find a balance between the Council and the Commission to find the appropriate response for development issues," she said.

She added: "Human rights and development are the main overarching principle in foreign relations, but the EU development policy has never been fully autonomous – we’ve got to have a combination of policies to achieve everything, you can’t address one without the other."

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