PASOS Report on development aid policies of new EU member states

The Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS) has published a study on the challenges of the new EU member states (NMS) with respect to implementing EU development cooperation policy. On 5 November 2007, PASOS Executive Director Jeff Lovitt presented to the European Parliament Development Committee the conclusions of the PASOS report, commissioned by the European Parliament.

This report sets out to provide an overview of the core priorities and strategies of the 10 (2004) NMS, the levels of ODA they have funded in recent years, and the planned commitments they have made in the years to come. The PASOS report points out the experience of the new Member States, in particular of transition to democracy, and stresses that good governance must be one of the priorities in the area of development co-operation.

The PASOS report includes a set of recommendations, pointing to the need for:
• A concerted public awareness campaign to gather political and public support for increased official development assistance (ODA) and an understanding of the UN Millennium Development Goals and development targets
• Combining the existing comparative advantages in the eastern dimension with the application of select expertise in less developed countries
• Co-operation among the new member states (NMS) to strengthen the flexibility of the EU towards eastern European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) neighbours
• Improving civil society and expert capacity in NMS to transfer know-how to ENP and less developed countries
• Strengthening co-ordination agencies in NMS and between NMS and other EU member states
• Setting of a target date to untie aid
• Making good governance a priority contribution of NMS to European Development Co-operation Policy (EDCP)


Many of the recommendations of the PASOS report, which was delivered to the development committee of the European Parliament on 4 October 2007, are reflected in the draft of a subsequent report by the development committee, which will be issued soon.

The full PASOS Report is available at: http://www.pasos.org/content/download/20717/100076/file/PE+385540+EN.pdf

For more information visit: http://www.pasos.org/

Information provided by Krista Baumane, PROVIDUS; vice-chair of the Latvian NGDO platform LAPAS; and Divna Popov, TRIALOG Intern