EU Development Policy Research Articles

Business Research and Development: Is there a Substitution Effect of Public Support?

The importance of research and development is reflected in the fact that one of the main priorities of the EU's development policies is increasing spending on research and development in EU member states (EC, 2010). Enterprises do not always have enough internal financial resources to launch their own innovation projects, and therefore they turn to external resource providers (Wang et al., 2016). The paper is aimed at examining the impact of corporate expenditures on R&D from the point of view of their funding sources and analysing the occurrence of the substitution effect of public support for R&D in EU 27 countries. These countries also have the highest level of public financing of research and development, that is, they use the public support of business innovations to the highest extent. The analysis showed that in the EU 27, the substitution effect of public support for research and development is not significant, or rather the complementarity of both types of expenditure prevails at the national level, as public funding of corporate research and development seems to have a positive effect on private research and development and investments. Our analysis is based on available secondary data for 27 EU member states. for a twenty-year observation period (2000-2020). The results have been achieved by using a methodology that includes cluster analysis, panel regression and correlation analysis. We bring new empirical evidence on the relationships between public support and business research and development expenditures. The research results showed the main sources of funding for corporate research and development. It concerns the business enterprises, government and abroad. The cluster analysis determined three clusters, divided according to the structure of the financing of R&D enterprises in EU countries. The results of the cluster analysis were partially in line with the current results of the European Innovation Review. Our findings provide policy implications for the public support policy.

From sectoral policy change to cross-sectoral (dis)integration? A longitudinal analysis of the EU's forest and rural development policy

Policy integration (PI) is critical to address cross-cutting challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss holistically. In the European Union, forests are confronting increasingly adverse climatic conditions and numerous stressors that impact their biodiversity. Political efforts to counteract these trends are mainly channeled through funding from the rural development policy as a pivotal part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In contrast, forest policy is hardly institutionalized at EU level. This study employs process tracing using 65 EU forest and rural development policy documents, including legal acts, preparatory documents, communications, related working documents and evaluation reports, predominantly produced over the last 25 years. By doing this, it examines the development of sectoral policy changes over time and their implications for the cross-sectoral integration of EU forest policy into rural development policy as part of agricultural policy at EU level. Results suggest that the adoption of the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 represented a provisional paradigm shift in EU forest policy. This shift is characterized by a substantial reprioritization of policy objectives, transitioning from an emphasis on economic aspects to a more climate- and biodiversity-centric approach, alterations in supported policy instruments and the introduction of various new regulatory instruments. On the other hand, the CAP and its rural development policy remain characterized by a path dependent incremental change and the latest reforms hardly reflect ambitious forest policy objectives both from budgetary and content perspectives. The findings suggest that the latest seemingly decoupled developments within both policy areas have led to an emergence of forest policy fragmentation at the EU level.

Blackmailing and Identity Profiling? The Behaviour of Populist Radical Right Governments in EU Development Policy

EU development policy has in recent years become more contested and politicised. One key factor driving this trend is the increasing influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Previous studies have focused on PRRPs as opposition parties. This contribution breaks new ground by exploring the behaviour of PRRP-led governments in EU development policy. More specifically, the article analyses how and to what extent this behaviour is characterised by “unpolitics,” an approach to undermining EU policymaking. We define “cross-policy blackmailing” and “identity profiling” as two potential strategies of unpolitics in EU development policy and probe these in two case studies. The first case concerns the New European Consensus on Development and the second is the EU’s positioning in the negotiations and signing of the Samoa Agreement. In the first case, we find that PRRP-led governments fundamentally rejected the decision-making rules as well as the norms on migration, gender, and sexual and reproductive health rights, using a strategy of identity profiling. In the second case, PRRP-led governments significantly stalled the conclusion of the agreement by combining cross-policy blackmailing and identity profiling. Based on this analysis, we generalise on the scope conditions of unpolitics in EU development policy.

SPECIFICS OF THE EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY

The article deals with the current stage of EU development policy. The evolution of the EU aid system is retrospectively analyzed. Attention is also paid to the key EU documents wherein the principles of current development policy are set forth. The background the EU is delivering its aid against is outlined. It involves political and economic crises, competition with the «rising» donors, including China, discussions on strategic autonomy, rise of the far-right parties. The pivotal changes in EU development policy are investigated, which are a new financial instrument, geographical redistribution of ODA flows, introduction of the Team Europe and Global Gateway initiatives, substantive change to the EU normative power concept. EU development policy is revealed to be increasingly acquiring a tactical character, with the focus having shifted onto the neighborhood and EU mainstream issues. Aspiration to make the aid system more flexible to rapidly respond to crises is noted as well.

How the EU Soil Observatory is providing solid science for healthy soils

AbstractHealthy soils are essential for sustainable food production, achieving climate neutrality and halting the loss of biodiversity. The European Commission turned the spotlights on these vital aspects of soils with the launch of the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) in 2021 to support the European Green Deal. Also, the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 and the proposed Soil Monitoring Law marked a major milestone for soil protection. This article provides an overview of the functioning of the EUSO within this policy context. Through its activities, the EUSO supports an EU‐wide soil monitoring system and provides policy support to a wide range of policy areas. Moreover, the EUSO monitors the state of soil health in the EU through the EUSO Soil Health Dashboard. This comprehensive and easy understandable tool shows, for the first time, where current scientific evidence converges to indicate areas in the EU likely to be affected by soil degradation. Furthermore, the EUSO supports soil research and innovation, enhances the capacity and functionality of the European Soil Data Centre and supports citizen engagements regarding soil matters. Overall, since 2021, the EUSO has successfully taken up its role to be the principal knowledge hub for soil information and data to underpin EU policy development and implementation. Also in the next years, EUSO will continue to provide data and knowledge to monitor, safeguard and restore soils in the EU.

Culture and Creativity Take Center Stage in the EU: How We Got to the EIT-KIC, and What Lies Ahead

The foundation for the EIT-KIC Culture and Creativity was laid in many steps, through a series of EU policy developments. Moving from the seminal report on The Economy of Culture promoted by the acting European Commissioner for Culture Jan Figel in 2006, we have witnessed a gradual development of the idea that cultural and creative sectors are a main driver of socio-economic development in Europe. This trajectory can be reconstructed in the sequence of the Work Plans for Culture that have spanned the last decade and in a few milestones such as the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 and its major legacies, the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage and the New European Agenda for Culture. Let’s briefly consider how all such components have been instrumental to the birth of the EIT-KIC Culture and Creativity, and how an understanding of such process is still fundamental today to fully appreciate the potential and criticalities of this new, ambitious endeavor.

COVID-19 as a critical juncture for EU development policy? Assessing the introduction and evolution of “Team Europe”

ABSTRACT This contribution analyses to what extent the EU’s external response to the COVID-19 pandemic, communicated under the label ‘Team Europe’, represents a critical juncture for the EU’s development policy in terms of creating conditions for institutional change. As an area of shared competence, EU development policy processes predominantly seek to strengthen cooperation between the EU and its member states whilst respecting their respective competencies. Such initiatives have lacked success due to member states’ resistance towards strengthened coordination, let alone integration. By contrast, the Team Europe approach promoted the pooling of choices and resources of EU institutions and member states and strengthened the frequency and political importance of enhanced cooperation. The article identifies the European Commission’s policy entrepreneurship, the alignment with member states’ interests, low levels of politicisation and broader contextual geopolitical changes as key explanatory factors influencing more favourable attitudes aimed at and prospects for closer cooperation as promoted by Team Europe.

Agricultural policy development in Moldova over one decade: recent estimates and an outlook towards EU accession

Public support for the agricultural sector of Moldova represents an essential priority of the bodies entitled to the development and implementation of public policies in the field of agriculture. Given the accelerated attempts to join the European Union, an alignment of the Moldovan agricultural policy to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and broader EU green infrastructure with Green Deal and Farm to Fork, are receiving an increasing attention. In order to support the policy makers and the experts with input for the EU legal approximation and future EU accession negotiations, this article presents recent estimates of public support for the agricultural sector of the Moldova using the OECD methodology. More specifically, the Producer Support Estimate (PSE) results are presented for eleven products covering the period 2007-2018. Despite increasing budgetary support of agricultural producers from the Government of Moldova, PSE for most commodities is negative. Given the relatively low relevance of trade interventions, the calculated price differentials hint at non-policy-related barriers to price transmission between the border and the farm gate. Potential reasons are discussed, and policy recommendations are developed. Furthermore, the structure of public policies for agriculture and rural areas, approximated by the General Services Support Estimate (GSSE), are presented. The comparison with the current CAP reveals that the structure of instruments differs substantially. Funding for the current Moldovan agricultural policy is heavily concentrated on investment support and the inspection and control system. Although the CAP might be further reformed until Moldova joins the EU, environmental and rural development policy objectives will remain paramount within the EU, and the relevant ministries should start to develop suitable joint strategies.

Mandate management: a field theory approach to the EBRD’s adaptive practice in Egypt

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was created in the early 1990s to promote the transition to a market economy and advance democracy in the post-communist countries of East Central Europe. How and why did this international organization, established for an entirely different purpose, then become an active investor in Egypt? Building on field theory, we explain the EBRD’s move to Egypt as an attempt to overcome the hysteresis effect of its anachronistic operational logic (habitus) within a changing field. Once in Egypt, the EBRD aspired to leverage its symbolic capital of technical assistance, democratic commitment and the privileging of the private sector. However, given Egypt’s increasingly autocratic and state capitalist evolution, it found delivering on its symbolic capital problematic. Its solution was to adapt to the very active European development finance field’s modalities. However, the European field’s logic ultimately de-prioritized democracy, human rights promotion, and poverty reduction and instead focused on sustainable investment, migration mitigation and containing Europe’s geo-economic rivals. In our case study, we demonstrate that the EBRD operated deftly within this field, while it also gained permission and even reward for its mandate management. It is a problematic finding for the future of the EU development policy.

Implementation procedures for EU development policy in Poland

EU law obliges Member States to introduce such management and control systems for the implementation of financial instruments on their territory to ensure their proper functioning and compliance with the objectives and principles of EU development policy. Within the limits set by the principles and provisions of treaty and statutory law, Member States are free to design these systems. The aim of the article is to present an outline of the national model for the implementation of EU funds in Poland from a procedural perspective (described in full detail in the author's monograph cited below). The study mainly used a methodology of analytical research (modelling) and doctrinal legal research (analysis of subject literature) with elements of comparative legal research. The analysis shows that the research results indicate that the most frequently used and at the same time the basic method of implementing development policy instruments is using special administrative procedures. These procedures (referred to in the doctrine as third generation procedures) differ from the general administrative procedure in certain elements like stronger formalization, accelerating the trial, methods of proof, remedies, and others. Due to the administrative nature of these proceedings, the control of decisions or other acts issued in them is exercised before administrative courts. Only some disputes relating to claims arising from co-finance decision or contracts and other claims in contractual or tortious matters are settled in the polish common courts. Such construction and specificity of the characterized system is justified by the purposes and functions of EU development policy and nature of its financial instruments. Also for this reason the requirements placed on implementation procedures in terms of their public accessibility and functionality should be seen from a different perspective than standard jurisdictional procedures, designed for general administrative or civil matters.

The impact of EU development policy on the governance capability of peripheral regions

Abstract The internal resource-based development of peripheral regions – which are still to be defined precisely and accepted universally – is a constant challenge for the European Union and the Member States, which is difficult to address in the form of a schematic recipe. An important aspect of this complex issue is the existence and success of local governance, which, based on its own internal characteristics alone, can mobilise a community, without which the chances of making further progress are bleak. Governance and the issue of peripheral regions together, at least at the EU level, are reflected in the EU’s development policy. This paper, based on the analysis of EU documents and the Hungarian local and regional experience, aims to investigate whether the European Union is able to assist peripheral regions to catch up, and if so, in what form and through what mechanisms, and what conditions and requirements-related to governance – may be necessary for successful catching up, which may at the same time lead to the success or failure of EU objectives.

Implementing circular economy in a regional context: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

Regions are the most important administrative units of the EU's development policies and so far, have been extensively used for framing and implementing strategic priorities. However, when it comes to regional implementation of the circular economy (CE), there is lack of systematicity both in academic literature and policy documents. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the regional adoption of CE, by systematically reviewing and synthesises the current academic literature in this emerging field, unveiling research gaps and discussing a future research agenda. The review was conducted by identifying relevant academic papers from leading journals using the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Overall, 82 relevant papers were identified through the review, which proceeded to descriptive, bibliometric and content analysis. This study has found that generally, the adoption of the circular economy on the regional level is underexplored, which was supported by the dearth of relevant academic contributions detected at the beginning of the process. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, this is the first attempt to provide a holistic systematic literature review in the regional circular economy domain. Hence, the present study is considered as a crucial initial contribution in the direction of establishing robust conceptual frameworks which involve the constructs of regional circular economy and laying the groundwork for future studies in this field.

How Can Development Strategies Foster Agri-digitalisation in the Era of Climate Change?

In recent years, several forward-looking initiatives have been taken in the direction of digital and sustainability transitions. Digitalisation is also gaining importance in EU, national agricultural and rural development policies, as it can enhance all three dimensions of sustainability and can lead to more efficient agricultural production and development. In this study, we conducted a consistency analysis to identify the interdependencies, impacts, and possible contradictions between the strategic objectives. The analysis compares the EU Common Agricultural Policy objectives with the Second Climate Change Strategy of Hungary (NCCS-2), the National Framework Strategy on Sustainable Development (NFSSD), the National Digital Agricultural Strategy (NDAS), and the National Rural Strategy (NRS) and explores the policy linkages between digital and sustainability transitions. The strategy documents are examined hierarchically between the EU and national levels, with a particular focus on the sector’s important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation-related processes. The results can support the emergence of innovative solutions and activities in rural areas and can contribute to improving the competitiveness of the agricultural sector, thereby supporting both the decision-making process and the achievement of rural sustainability ambitions.

Содействие развитию или управление миграцией? (Анализ европейского подхода)

The main purpose of the research is to identify the achievements and failures of the European Communi-ties/European Union development policies in terms of countering unwanted migration from third countries to Europe. European development policy started in the 1950–1960s due to the colonial past of many European states which felt responsibility for their ex-colonies. Common development policy was based at first on the values, but later transformed to serve the European geopolitical interests. Therefore, the European development policy changed from providing unilateral preferences and gratuitous help to making any aid conditional on the partner’s ability to meet the EU requirements. Thus, the responsibility for development was gradually moved from Europe to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. In the 2000s, the need to prevent massive immigration making it more manageable became one of the regular EU interests. Therefore, the European Union launched the external dimension of its migration policy that was aimed at making development work for migration prevention. This trend contributed to the EU development policy reorientation from the poorest states to the nearest ones. Although the EU development policy was transformed, it failed to meet most of its aims. The main failures were the expectation to limit immigration in the short-term and overestimation of the Union’s normative power. Because of both Brussels’ inability to ensure development globally and the widening gap in the welfare between the ACP states and Europe, the immigration to the EU is unlikely to drop until 2060s.

The EU normative power in development policy

The article examines the peculiarities of EU normative power application in its development policy towards the countries of the Global South. Despite the controversial results of seventy years of efforts by the European Economic Community and then the European Union to promote development, the international situation and the difficulties inside the EU are making the EU intensify its development policy and look for more effective tools. The author tries to identify the reasons for the transformation of approaches in the EU development policy by taking into account the influence of both external and internal factors affecting the EU’s ability to exercise its normative power. It is concluded that, firstly, the internal factors including the EU enlargements, solidarity crisis and Brexit are currently changing the EU’s ability to serve as a normative power in its development policy. Secondly, the EU has not found any alternatives to development policy in solving both global and its own difficulties in normative and geopolitical aspects. Thirdly, the EU is still looking for more effective tools to both facilitate development and exercise its normative power. The practical significance of the research is to create a basis for elaborating and upgrading Russian development policy approaches since it is very limited, but it could be beneficial for Russia in the world arena.

Comparing Impact Evaluation Evidence of EU and Local Development Policies with New Urban Agenda Themes: The Agri Valley Case in Basilicata (Italy)

The European Union’s Cohesion Policy is the most important structural policy in terms of financial commitment, geographical size and time frame, aimed at redistributing wealth between regions and countries, to stimulate growth in areas whose development is lagging behind. The reach of the investments prompted the EU Commission to promote an impact evaluation of the European Structural Funds (SF); however, the impact evaluation of EU programs is almost neglected in the Italian regions. This paper is based on the results developed within the RI.P.R.O.VA.RE project and is aimed at defining an impact evaluation of EU SF and other regional funds, based on evidence derived from the analysis of a specific case study in the Agri Valley area (Basilicata, Italy). To develop the impact evaluation process, the euro amounts of all the individual policies organized according to the themes of the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the impact indicators and the trend for the municipalities are considered together, in order to obtain an overall trend for the entire case study area. An important result is achieved above all in the methodological approach to impact evaluation: the municipal territorial scale is taken into account; the maps illustrate the use of resources; regardless of the type of funding source since there is a comparison between the priority axes of the funds with the NUA issues; and indicators are developed with open data available at a national level. This experiment makes it possible to detect that, even in the face of significant investments, some substantial aspects that are part of the policy objectives remain unchanged or even worsen.

EU Rural Policy’s Capacity to Facilitate a Just Sustainability Transition of the Rural Areas

The sustainability transition of rural areas is a must due to rapid climate changes and biodiversity loss. Given the limited resources of rural communities, policy should facilitate a just sustainability transition of the EU rural areas. The analysis of EU development policies, past performance and the envisaged scope of reform, presented in this study point to a serious inconsistency between the declaration and implementation of relevant policies. Namely, the marginal role rural areas perform in common agricultural policy and cohesion policy; a result of the lack of a complex approach to rural development. The analysis was based on the concept of good governance and took a multi-level perspective. It advocates territorial justice as an approach that should be at the core of creating a comprehensive policy for rural areas in the EU, including their diversity and empowering local communities to choose the transition pathway that is most in line with their current situation and development capacity. This analysis fills a gap in research on the evolution of the rural development policy in the EU. This research can inform the reprioritization and intensification of efforts to create equitable policies for EU rural development.

Global Europe? The new EU external action instrument and the European Parliament

ABSTRACT This article investigates the involvement of the European Parliament (EP) in the preparations of the new EU external action financing instrument (2018–2021). From an explorative perspective, we analyse how the EP contributed to the changes in EU development policy discourse that prepared this fundamental reform, and to the reform itself by promoting its priorities and preferences during the negotiations. We propose three potential research directions on the EP's role in European development policy and the changing function of this field within external policies. The analysis of the negotiation process describes how the EP used its co-legislative role to introduce changes to its other two development policy roles: budgetary control and supervision. The complex nature of the new instrument and the perspectives of the co-legislators create uncertainty on how these changes will affect the EP's influence on the EU's development policy, and how the instrument will reform established development policy approaches.

The EU-LAC strategic partnership under revision: towards a more differentiated relationship

ABSTRACT In 1999, at their first inter-regional Summit, the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) established a Strategic Partnership. Two decades later, the attempt to create a more horizontal relationship has not been successful, because the one-size-fits-all approach does not respond to the increasing heterogeneity of the region divided into high income, low and upper middle-income countries. Those states that are still qualifying as recipients of EU aid face two major development problems: inequality and insecurity. Brussels addresses these challenges by two recent paradigms: development in transition and the security-development nexus. As a litmus test for reducing inequalities and insecurity, the authors ask whether Latin America will experience a comeback in EU development policy under these new labels, and if they offer an opportunity to reactivate declining relations by a more appropriate differentiated country-wise response that replaces traditional inter-regionalism.

The graduation of EU development studies: towards a post-colonial turn?

ABSTRACT This conclusion reflects on the contributions to this volume from a post-colonial perspective. Although the colonial origins of EU development policy and its continuing relevance are generally assumed, the implications of this are often underexposed. After presenting the “post-colonial challenge” for the study of EU development and international partnership policies, I introduce and apply the decentring framework as proposed by Fisher-Onar and Nicolaïdis (2021). Within each of the three steps in this model – provincialization, engagement, and reconstruction – I clarify what it implies for EU development studies, then link it to critiques of existing literature, including contributions in this volume, and indicate how authors point at some promising avenues forward. Finally, I argue that further research on the EU’s role towards the Global South should also account for injustices and alternatives within Europe.