The EU in a Changing Scenario of Development Cooperation: Between Accommodation and Entrenchment

The rise of emerging countries and their South-South cooperation has created a scenario of adversity for the EU that defies its leadership, influence, legitimacy and normativity in the field of development cooperation. The paper will examine this challenge and how the EU has reacted to it, analysing the significant reforms adopted from 2011 onwards, particularly, the Agenda for Change, the new financial instruments, and the reform of the GSP. The paper will discuss how the EU has found itself placed between, on one hand, a difficult accommodation to the changing development scenario driven by emerging powers, that hinders its legitimacy and leadership; and on the other hand, its entrenchment in a traditional North-South aid paradigm that obstructs the search for new and more balanced development partnerships with middle-income countries, including so-called triangular cooperation.