On 15 July 2008, the European Parliament's Committee on Development and the Committee on Budgets held a Joint Hearing on the Financial Implementation of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF), the EU's main instrument for development cooperation with the ACP countries and the Community's overseas territories. EDF 10 amounts to 22.7 billion euros and covers the period 2008-2013. The key issue discussed was the so-called "budgetisation" of the EDF, meaning its integration into the general budget of the EU.

ACP-EU JPA Co-chair Glenys Kinnock opened the discussion by raising the issue of the EDF's "anomalous" state, being governed by the Cotonou Agreement and not the EU Treaties which govern the rest of EU's development cooperation programmes. The result of this arrangement, Kinnock argued, is that parliamentary scrutiny of the EDF is non-existent and democratic accountability is weakened. 

The Committee heard that the Commission contends that budgetising the EDF simplifies and harmonises budgetary procedures, and that at present  20% of ACP funds (from the Sugar Protocol) already comes from the Community budget.

The issue of budgetisation of the EDF has been under discussion in the EU institutions for many years without any consensus for action being reached, but the Commission is now moving towards aligning both budgets and aims to completely achieve this by the end of the year. 

Source:

• Eurostep notes