Fit for creating partnerships of equals with the global south? Tensions in the EU’s development policy post-2020

Abstract

The European Union seeks to adjust its external policies to the shifting challenges of the international order. As part of this adjustment, the European Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen embarked on a mission to revitalize and reconfigure its partnership with the African continent and the ACP group of states. According to the EU, the era of donor-recipient relations is over. The core of this effort is a novel and more flexible financial instrument for external relations. In this article, we shed a critical light on the implicit tensions in the EU’s approach for creating a more effective and equal international development policy post-2020. We develop a theoretically anchored and empirically relevant conceptualization of partnership and show that the EU’s reform of its budget for external action entails a shift towards more domination instead of a partnership of equals with the global south.