The EU at the World Bank: Institutional and Policy Performance

Abstract

This article investigates the main dimensions of the performance of the European Union (EU) in the World Bank’s Executive Board, focusing specifically on the institutional and policy levels, and suggesting potential approaches to explain the EU’s field performance in World Bank–coordinated and multi-donor projects. Based on a set of different empirical sources (interviews; documentary surveys on EU, World Bank, and third-party documents), the article identifies the main determinants of the variation in the EU’s performance, and provides inputs towards an overall explanatory framework of the Union’s achievements at the World Bank.

Key Words:

• European Union
• international organizations
• World Bank
• performance

Notes

1. ODA (Official Development Assistance) from EU15 amounted to 48 billion Euros in 2009, and 49 billion Euros in 2008, accounting for more than half the world ODA (European Commission 2010). Contributions to the World Bank from EU Member states amount to nearly one third of shares (World Bank 2009). From its side, the EU Commission has contributed to IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) Trust funds and Financial Intermediary Funds with a total of 901.77 USD million, ranking 6^th among the major EU Member states, after the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain (the ranking includes respective IDA contributions for these EU MS). Data on contributions to IBRD Trust funds is available at http://www.aidflows.org.

2. This article is part of a larger project on EU–World Bank relations. In the context of the EUPERFORM project, this author has benefited from funds provided under the PRIN 2008 program, project title ‘The Causes of Inter-State War since the End of the Cold War’, coordinator F. Andreatta, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

3. Examples are the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), former Operations Evaluation Department in the World Bank and the Joint Evaluation Unit (JEU) in the EC.

4. The analysis relies on data gathered from both interviews and documentary evidence, comprising both EU and World Bank official and non-official documents. Third-party documents (articles and reports from various sources, including EU and non-EU-based think tanks and advocacy groups) further integrate the off-the-shelf components of the data. Finally, the study is based on a survey conducted by the author at the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and by phone with Washington- and Brussels-based officials between January and March 2008.

5. Cohesion and coordination have emerged as key themes in the empirical investigation.

6. EU EDs have released joint statements, which, albeit not formal in nature, are seen as carrying moral and signaling weight in the eyes of non-EU members at the Bank. Also, EU EDs customarily meet every Friday morning to discuss issues of common interest. The EuroGroup consists of all the EDs and alternates from EU MS, and was created in 2003 under the auspices of the Italian Presidency to improve their coordination at the Board on matters of EU interest.

7. The percentage refers to World Bank respondents, both EU and non-EU nationals, irrespective of their organizational position.

8. See Baroncelli 2008.

9. The SCIMF is a Brussels-based subcommittee on IMF, comprised of economic and finance ministers; the EURIMF is a Washington-based informal body composed of EU EDs and representatives of other EU MS at the IMF (see Eurodad 2006).

10. Bini Smaghi (2004) notes how excessive institutionalization of coordination may induce perverse effects, in the direction of further differentiation, among EU EDs at the IMF.

11. Statements by Development Commissioners, available at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DEVCOMMEXT/0,,menuPK:60001657~pagePK:64001141~piPK:64001176~theSitePK:277473,00.html, selected years.

12. Art. 208 (1) TFEU.

13. As noted by Kissack (this issue), ILO members also appreciate the progressive nature of the European social model.

14. The IDA is the International Development Association, the branch that in the World Bank Group provides interest-free funds to promote development in the poorest countries.

15. Yearly average, over the period 2007-2009, OECD Statistics from http://stats.oecd.org

16. This is the case, for example, with the ‘Spanish’ constituency, where the state shares a constituency composed exclusively of Latin American countries.

17. Post-Lisbon DG DEV and Europeaid have been merged into a single DG (Development Cooperation and Europeaid). Foreign and security policy, along with general external representation, fall within the remit of the newly created High Representative post, aided by the new European External Action Service (EEAS).

18. On the role that EU-internal dynamics at the end of the 1990s subsequently played in its performance in multilateral trade negotiations, see Young (this issue).