Abstract

Brexit is likely to herald fundamental changes in the operation, scope and practice of EU development policy, due to the UK’s key role in leading and defining the geographical and sectoral remit of policy, and through its provision of large-scale funding. Through a focus on the EU’s relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, this article explores these potential impacts. It highlights the importance of the timing of Brexit in relation to the contemporaneous renegotiation of EU–ACP relations and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and argues that the focus on static impacts of Brexit, in terms of removing the UK from the ‘EU equation’, overlooks the broader dynamics of political economy in which it is situated. Through the analysis of the anticipatory adjustments and discursive dynamics in EU development policy that articulate the pursuit of material interests, the article helps understand both the dynamics of Brexit and the broader transformations in which it is located.

Highlights

  • This article draws on the central themes of this Special Issue to explore the impact of Brexit on EU Development Policy, with a specific focus on EU–Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) relations

  • In particular the current renegotiation of the EU–ACP Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) provides a useful early test of such impacts on EU development policy, as it has coincided both with preparations for Brexit and internal EU budgetary negotiations for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)

  • The focus on the anticipatory adjustments in advance of Brexit speaks to Rosamond’s (2016, p. 868) analysis of disintegration as an indeterminate, messy and drawn out process mediated by the EU’s multi-institutional game. This uncertainty points to the way in which the effects of Brexit on EU development policy will depend on the adjustments made by both societal and institutional actors (De Ville & Siles-Brügge, 2019) In terms of the EU–ACP relationship these anticipatory adjustments are increasingly apparent in the EU’s sectoral and geographic orientation and discursive dynamics

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Summary

Introduction

This article draws on the central themes of this Special Issue to explore the impact of Brexit on EU Development Policy, with a specific focus on EU–Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) relations. In particular the current renegotiation of the EU–ACP Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) provides a useful early test of such impacts on EU development policy, as it has coincided both with preparations for Brexit and internal EU budgetary negotiations for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) As such it reveals the anticipatory adjustments made by key actors in preparation for the departure of the UK, most notably EU Member states, EU and ACP institutional actors, and associated political and societal interests. Whilst recognising the importance of the institutional challenges and changes provoked by Brexit, this article argues for a broader analysis which highlights the more fundamental shifts that are reflective and constitutive of disintegration It points to the anticipatory adjustments already underway in EU development policy that indicate its dynamic effects, for example the changing preferences and strategies in relation to the geographical and sectoral focus of development policy. By exploring the framing of a post-Brexit EU development policy as the securing of EU self-interest in the context of Brexit, the article argues that the disintegrative moment of the UK’s decision to leave the EU has provided an opportunity for the EU to readjust its external focus and influence to the exigencies of a changing and increasingly competitive global economy

The Political Economy of EU Development Policy
The EU–ACP Relationship
Exploring the Static Impacts of Brexit
The Funding Gap
The Policy Leadership Gap
EDF Reform and Increased ‘Europeanisation’
Reorientation of Geographical and Sectoral Focus
The Discursive Dynamics of Brexit
Findings
Conclusion

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