Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2017

The new European Consensus on Development, which had been under negotiation since September 2016, was adopted at the Development FAC on 19 May 2017 and signed on 7 June during the European Development Days event.

This Consensus, which sketches out the main principles of future European development policy, is a new collective vision and a new action plan to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. It fully integrates the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In doing so, it aligns European action in the field of development with the 2030 sustainable development programme, which is also a cross-cutting dimension of the EU’s overall strategy.

Following long negotiations, the final interinstitutional adoption of the new Consensus was signed by Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, Joseph Muscat, Maltese Prime Minister, on behalf of the Council and the Member States, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission and Ms Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The Consensus was co-signed by the President of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer.

At the Development FAC in May 2017, Minister Schneider requested that a unilateral declaration be added to the minutes of the Council to summarise the position taken by Luxembourg with regard to the new Consensus. He considered that the final text of the Consensus encompassed a multitude of subjects and concerns not directly linked to development cooperation and that it defined development policy too strictly as one of the instruments of the EU’s external action that must be subordinated to the requirements and needs of an overall policy.