European Parliament (Brussels):
- 16 and 19 November: Committee meetings
- 17-19 November: Political groups meetings

EU Presidency (Brussels):
- 17 November: Working Party on External Fisheries Policy
- 18 November: Coreper I; Africa Working Party (COAFR); United Nations Working Party: CONUN
- 19 November: Coreper I
- 20 November: ACP Working Party; Coreper II 

ACP Secretariat (Brussels):
16-19 November: 90th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers

For more information please consult the calendar on our webpage http://brussels.cta.int/

Pro€Invest launched its new website on 2  November. All information related to available tools  of the Programme such as technical assistance will be easily accessible. New rubrics will also give you the opportunity to discover all activities and projects of intermediary and regional organizations  that have worked with the Programme. Rubrics such as «Feedback on projects» and «News» will also give a particular online space to project owners for the promotion of their organization’s activities!

Source: Pro€Invest

New issue of Partnership (n°104), CDE's electronic newsletter, presents a number of articles, among which the following:

- European SMEs and ACP private sector : towards new partnerships ?
- Platform to support Partnerships between Italian and ACP enterprises
- The European Network and Competitiveness Clusters
- The CDE network and SME access to finance
- Central Africa : CDE commits to implementing ICT development programme
- Organic farming : CDE supports pineapple production in Togo

Source: CDE

Mozambique in southeast Africa is one of the most beautiful countries in Africa, lying as it does on the Indian Ocean. However, political instability and civil war have blighted life for its 22 million people since independence. On 28 October it held its fourth Presidential and Parliamentary elections since multi-party democracy took hold in the 1990's. A group of MEPs took part in the EU's Election Observation Mission and found the election to be fair despite some logistical problems.

Source: European Parliament 

In this publication, the author describes the global approaches to donor harmonisation as agreed in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action. According to the declaration, Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors – including the EC and EU Member State DAC donors – committed themselves to enhance their aid effectiveness. They agreed on five principles to guide their actions, one of which was the principle of ‘harmonisation’. DAC donors agreed to ’harmonise’ their development assistance efforts. The stated aim, essentially, was to make aid collectively more effective by making it more efficient. Aid was considered to be ‘fragmented’, with duplicating efforts at country and sectoral level creating high ‘transaction costs’ – for donors, but also for partner countries. In other words: donors agreed to divide up the work. They would change who did what so that there would no longer be ‘darling’ and ‘orphan’ countries – some countries getting most of the aid, others little. They would spread their contributions within countries, with some donors moving out of ‘overpopulated’ sectors into other sectors that were prioritised by partner countries but had received little support.

Source:  Wide Network

On Friday 30 October the EU Council reached agreement on the joint funding of flights to remove illegal immigrants from EU countries. This decision, the first of its kind, came after a week of fierce controversy surrounding France’s repatriation of three Afghans. The French used the same flight as the British, who were also returning illegal immigrants to Kabul. In the conclusions of the summit the 27 member states called for, “A determined response based on firmness, solidarity and shared responsibility.” The next step will be in early 2010 when the Commission is to table a proposal examining the possibility of regular joint return flights funded by the EU agency Frontex. Commenting on the decision, Nicolas Sarkozy said he wished to see the EU “go further”. “I hope that one day we will see EU border police,” he added.

Source: Euractiv

The challenges awaiting the EU at the forthcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen were presented by Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas to MEPs of the Environment Committee on Wednesday. Members then quizzed the Commissioner on the financing and efficiency of new measures to combat climate change.

Source: European Parliament

Responding to the Commission’s Communication and report on Policy Coherence for Development, CONCORD released a report appealing for Europe to stop harming developing countries with its policies. The “Spotlight on Policy Coherence” report looks at the damaging impact that EU policies such as trade and agriculture are having on developing countries, effectively undoing all of the potential achievements of its development aid.

Source: Concord

This paper provides a description of the EU’s biofuel policies, set in the context of its overall policy framework on renewable and bioenergy, and their interface with the WTO legal system. Although undoubtedly influenced by concerns about security of energy supplies, and a wish to find alternative market outlets for European farmers, the EU’s policy for biofuels (defined in EU legislation as liquid and gaseous fuels for transport use) is associated closely with its more generic policies to promote bioenergy, which in legislative terms is embedded in its policy on renewable energy, part of its strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The EU’s strategy, and its implementation by the Member States, has been evolving for a number of years; but its current ambition is that by 2020 some 20 percent of its primary energy supplies should come from renewable resources (including bioenergy) and that, in each Member State, renewables (largely biofuels) should provide 10 percent of energy use for transport. It is up to the Member States to deliver on these obligations, in the framework of EU rules.

Source: ICTSD

The Routledge GARNET series, Europe in the World, provides a forum for innovative research and current debates emanating from the research community within the GARNET Network of Excellence "Global Governance, regionalisation and Regulation: The Role of the EU", a project supported by the 6th Research Framework Programme of the European Commission. The Routledge GARNET series will provide an outlet for research on a wide range of issues related to regulation in the context of regional and global governance, the representation and participation of the EU in global governance, and regionalism in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The book series aims to address the broad processes of governance, including the turn to governance in international relations, and in the political and social relations inherent in the different forms of regionalism. With a specific orientation shaped by the ‘Europe in the world’ concern of the network, this series goes beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries to offer a more integrated and holistic set of literature that focuses on regulation, governance, and regional policy-building. The series embraces multi-disciplinary perspectives to cover questions of relevance to contemporary society, amidst the challenges to regional cooperation in dealing with poverty and human welfare, peace, security, and social justice.

Source: European Commission

The European Commission announced the launch of a second phase of the ACP-EU Energy Facility under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) for the period 2009-2013. Following a first successful implementation phase, the European Union and the ACP Group of States agreed to set aside € 200 million to continue activities to improve access to sustainable and affordable energy services for the poor while contributing to the fight against climate change by focusing on renewable energy solutions and energy efficiency measures.

Source: European Commission

For the first time since the Commitment to Development Index was published in 2003, Sweden ranks first in the annual assessment of wealthy countries' policies that boost prosperity in the developing world. Index architect David Roodman released the 2009 rankings at the European Development Days in Stockholm on October 22.

Source:  Center for Global Development

Three to six billion Euros of European ODA is wasted each year due to the lack of implementation of existing aid effectiveness commitments. This is the main finding of the new report “Aid Effectiveness Agenda. Benefits of a European Approach” which has been released by the European Commission at the European Development Days in Stockholm. The report investigates the costs of five dimensions of aid ineffectiveness: the lack of division of labour, tied aid, volatility and unpredictability, and finally the cost incurred when recipient country public financial systems are not used and government ownership is weak.

Source: Eurodad

The European Union has outlined its vision of a better connected world, unveiling a new strategy designed to support innovation through investment. Viviane Reding, EU commissioner for information society and media, said in a speech Thursday that the internet has the power to make European systems smarter and more efficient across the board. Reding suggested that the internet could lead to lower emissions, better healthcare, and less congested roads, for example, if the information it contains is harnessed correctly and efficiently. The strategy is designed to boost European internet infrastructures, and Reding said that the EU will work with national governments and IT companies to build up a EUR 300m investment fund. The European Commission has already invested EUR 400m in more than 90 European projects under its ICT research programme, and will invest another EUR 200m a year until at least 2013. This latest announcement will contribute to the EC's plans to make Europe a leader in the research and rollout of future internet technologies needed to «smarten up" infrastructures, Reding said.

Source: Information Policy

The European Union-funded Facilitating Agricultural Commodity Trade (FACT) project has engaged with a local cocoa exporting company based in Honiara to support communities and provide an alternative source of livelihood. Direct Management Limited (DML) is one of the 14 enterprises the FACT project is supporting. By engaging with this company, the project aims to improve the entire cocoa supply chain in order to benefit the industry as a whole. The FACT project is managed within the Land Resource Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community with the goal of increasing agricultural and forestry trade within the region and exports from it by ensuring a consistent and quality supply. The FACT project aims to sustainably increase the quality and range of exports of Pacific agriculture and forestry products, and to contribute to the integration of the 14 Pacific members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) into the regional and global economy.

Source: Solomon Star

An end is in sight to the world's longest-running trade dispute, involving bananas, and a deal could be in place by the end of the year, senior European and Latin American trade negotiators said. Settling the banana dispute would be a fillip for the World Trade Organisation, whose long-running Doha round to free up global commerce, like other trade negotiations, has at times been held hostage by the decades-old row. Cesar Montano Huerta, the top diplomat at the WTO mission of Ecuador, the world's biggest banana exporter, said officials were negotiating intensively and even hoped to clinch a deal in the next couple of weeks. The deal, which could be reached before the WTO's ministerial conference starting November 30, would see the European Union cutting tariffs on bananas for suppliers in Latin America and elsewhere. In return the Latin Americans would drop outstanding challenges to the EU at the WTO, and Brussels would provide compensation to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, mainly former British, French and Portuguese colonies, who would lose their preferential access to the European market. The detailed terms are likely to resemble an agreement almost reached in July last year on the fringes of a meeting of trade ministers seeking a breakthrough on the Doha talks.

Source: Reuters

Task of drafting detailed proposals will be left to the EU's new foreign policy chief. The leaders of the EU's 27 member states have endorsed the outlines of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the new diplomatic corps that is to assist the Union's next foreign-policy chief once the Treaty of Lisbon has been ratified. On the sidelines of their summit in Brussels they signed off on a text agreed earlier this week by foreign ministers that will guide the incoming high representative for foreign affairs and security policy in shaping the EEAS. The new high representative, who under the Lisbon treaty will also serve as a vice-president of the European Commission, is expected to be named at a special summit of EU leaders next month, together with the president of the European Council, the other major new position created by the Lisbon treaty. The EEAS will be a new service autonomous of both the Commission and the secretariat of the Council of Ministers but will include officials from both institutions, as well as national diplomats from the EU's member states.

Source: European Voice

"Safeguards and trade remedies in the SADC and ESA Economic Partnership Agreements" is a new working paper released by Prof. Gerhard Erasmus. This paper discusses the “Trade Defence Instruments” in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) currently being negotiated between the European Union, on the one hand, and different configurations of ACP countries on the other. These “instruments” cover remedies against unfair trade practices (anti-dumping and countervailing measures) as well as safeguards. ACP concerns about infant industry protection, food security and agriculture are also on the agenda. 

Source: tralac