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Change is a theme running through the pages of Trade Negotiations Insights this month. Particularly change in Brussels, where a new Commission is setting up office under the banner of the freshly ratified Lisbon Treaty. High expectations have been placed upon these personalities in the Commission and the innovations introduced in the Treaty.
What are the hopes that have been invested in the Lisbon Treaty? One is that it will result in better coordination within the EU, not least in the field of trade and development. Although Europe has been at the forefront of the effort to link development and trade, our first guest contributor, Davina Makhan, remarks that it has often struggled to adopt an approach in which the European Community and member states work in sync.
But while the Lisbon Treaty can potentially improve the coordination of the EU’s development policies - Ms Makhan points to the ACP-EU EPAs and the Aid for Trade as initiatives that need better coherence -she also warns that the Lisbon Treaty “is no panacea”. The Lisbon Treaty provides some new tools, yet to be effective it requires high levels of cooperation and a clear division of labour between the Community and member states.
Building on this theme, in our next essay a group of European think tanks ask: On what foundation can the EU build a distinct approach to trade and development? Some answers, they conclude, can be found by maximizing the potential of existing trade preferences, adopting new approaches to private sector standards, and developing a more coherent EU approach to the AfT initiative.
The AfT initiative is analysed in more detail in our essay by Michael Brüntrup and Petra Voionmaa, the authors of a new report on the German AfT experience. They weigh the strengths and challenges of the AfT initiative as a whole, the specific positives and negatives of the German approach to trade-related assistance, and provide some suggestions on the best way forward.
Our next essay examines an EU financing mechanism intended to help vulnerable ACP states to protect social spending in the wake of the global financial crisis. The Vulnerability-FLEX mechanism (V-FLEX) has the makings of a success story, writes Melissa Dalleau, a research assistant at ECDPM and a core member of our editorial team at TNI. Yet Ms Dalleau cautions that the relatively small budget afforded to the mechanism, and its two-year life span, are serious constraints on its longer-term effectiveness.
Rounding out our issue, we feature an article on the EU’s approach to supporting regional integration in Africa, by Lodewijk Briet, Head of European Union Delegation to South Africa. It’s an approach informed by the EU’s own experience of integration, explains Mr. Briet, but also fully aware that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution.
As always, we welcome comments and unsolicited offers to contribute articles. These can be sent to dvisdunbar@ictsd.ch.
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