• by Cillian Donnelly (brussels)
• Friday, June 05, 2009
• Inter Press Service

While the European Parliament elections are raising many questions about the future direction of the EU, the practicalities of the precise make-up of the parliament mean that development policies look set to be put on hold until autumn.

A European official says it will be 'a lottery' to see who is given the task of carrying out development policy.

The European Parliament is set up in a complex way, with various political groups of like-minded parties replacing the more traditional national parliamentary structure of government and opposition.

The Parliament has various standing committees that reflect EU policy interests, such as foreign affairs, energy and environment, and agriculture and development. It has delegations whose task it is to forge relations with third countries or regions.

Following a European Parliament election, it becomes somewhat of a scramble by members (MEPs), usually under instruction from their own domestic party, to fill vacant committee and delegation places. That scramble is expected to begin next week after the European Parliament election is completed this weekend.

Committees considered the most 'glamorous', such as foreign affairs (despite the fact that the European Parliament has no binding competencies in this area) tend to be the most hard fought for.

It is within this scramble for appointments to the so-called 'prestige positions' that the development committee looks set to suffer. 'With our committee, you can usually expect a bunch of Socialists to be interested, but now we can't be so sure,' says a Parliament official who works with the development committee.

'Then, for example, if the German Christian Democrats (centre-right party of government) decide they want to concentrate on foreign affairs, they will try and pack that committee with their members, relegating the likes of development to a lower priority. It is quite a lottery who we end up with; maybe not the right kind of people.'

But despite this apprehension about whether or not committee members will have the right levels of expertise or enthusiasm for the job, assurances are being handed out that work on development policy will continue. A report on climate change and development, for instance, is being drafted.

Towards the end of July a two-day constituency meeting of the development committee will take place at which a chair and vice-chair will be appointed, and the membership formally declared.

Michael Gahler, a German Christian Democrat, is being spoken of as candidate for the post of committee chair.

In July each of the Parliament's political groups will come together to decide the short-term priorities for the committee. But no real political work is due this side of the summer recess. MEPs and staff are more concerned with logistical and administration matters than with policy.

The policy work should move more quickly in the autumn. A meeting will be held in September with the Swedish government, which holds presidency of the EU for the second half of the year. This meeting is due to set development priorities for later this year, and these may be carried into 2010.

One of the first European parliament missions planned in the autumn is a delegation of MEPs to Zimbabwe. Staff are 'pushing hard' to allow two further fact-finding missions, one to Botswana and the other to South Africa. The rationale is that both have relatively new governments, making it the right time to cement relations between those countries and the EU.

September also brings a constituency meeting of the European delegation of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA), a body consisting of 78 ministers from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and 78 MEPs.

As with the development committee in the parliament, it is not known as yet who these 78 MEPs will be. They will be selected over the next two months, but again there is an element of 'lottery' in who will make up the 78.

A clearer picture of the EU's development goals - at least in the short-term - should emerge by the end of September, as reports begin to be prepared ahead of the JPA plenary in Angola in November.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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