Case: Policy coherence in general

15-09-2009 Swedish presidency hopeful on coherence for development, but also on trade?

In the second half of 2009 it is Sweden who will preside the Council of the European Union. On their website and in the work programme for the Swedish Presidency of the EU they highlight several priority issues and discuss these further. Fair Politics took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Swedish statements in relation to (the effects on) developing countries and policy coherence for development.

In their presidency priorities Sweden refers to policy coherence and cohesive approaches to development, which sounds very encouraging. Issues such as climate change, the financial crisis and poverty in developing countries, and in particular the interlinkages between those, were also highlighted.

Most of Sweden’s priorities focus on the EU’s internal situation and in particular its economy, employment situation and the climate. Especially within this last one however, Sweden does point out the responsibility of the EU in dealing with these changes and have installed a Commission on Climate Change and Development.

The presidency programme also mentions the EU’s global role with “a clear agenda for peace, development, democracy and human rights”.  Also here they highlight the importance of ensuring coherence between trade and development policy initiatives. The question is, however, how they view coherence in this matter. In the case of trade, they simultaneously emphasise the importance of rapidly concluding both the Doha Round and the ongoing free trade negotiations, including those with the Andean countries.

This last point about the trade agreements with the Andean countries concerns Fair Politics in particular. These negotiations were originally set in a context of a region-to-region Association Agreement, but are now being concluded in a bilateral free trade setting that does not even refer to development anymore and is highly criticised by civil society on both continents for many different reasons.

This partly corresponds to the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with different African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that are being mentioned by Sweden as an import work in progress, whereas also here agreements tend to turn bilateral and commercial and many societal concerns have been expressed. 

See our case study on EPAs for more information on the way these agreements can cause regional disintegration rather than the intended integration, as well as the lack of a level-playing field for local producers and the potential negative consequences of including non-trade issues such as Intellectual Property Rights.

The fact that no changes are proposed in the fields of trade and development in order to increase the coherence and the fairness of the policies, is therefore somewhat disappointing. We do applaud the emphasis on coherence for and the importance of development in general, as well as in relation to climate change and democracy specifically.