The study "An Assessment of the Balancing of EU Development Objectives with Other Policies and Priorities", to which Ecologic Institute contributed, evaluates the coherence between the EU’s development policies and its other policies. Its authors describe the positive and negative impacts of these policies on development priorities and provide recommendations to achieve better policy coherence. The study was commissioned by the European Parliament and is available for download.

In November 2005, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to promoting policy coherence for development (PCD) in "The European Consensus on Development". Furthermore, Article 208 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union emphasises that the EU will ensure coherence between its policies. Against this background, the study investigates to which extent  coherence has been achieved in practice.

The authors conclude that some progress has been made towards achieving coherence between development cooperation on one hand, and trade, migration, agricultural and climate policies on the other. However, further efforts are needed in several areas, for example in agricultural policies. European agricultural susdies have a predominantly negative impact on developing countries; the authors therefore recommend gradually abolishing certain types of agricultural subsidies.

The study was commissioned by the European Parliament as part of the framework contract on development policy. It is to inform the Parliament’s report on policy coherence for development.

The Ecologic Institute has contributed chapters on agriculture and climate politics.

The study [pdf, 1.2 MB, English] is available for download.

Christiane Gerstetter (Ecologic Institute) and Selen Sarisoy Guerin, Institute of European Studies, presented the study on 15 June 2011 to the Development Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels.