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Bettin, Valentina --- "NGOs and the Development Policy of the European Union" [2008] ELECD 147; in Dupuy, Pierre-Marie; Vierucci, Luisa (eds), "NGOs in International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: NGOs in International Law

Editor(s): Dupuy, Pierre-Marie; Vierucci, Luisa

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847205605

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: NGOs and the Development Policy of the European Union

Author(s): Bettin, Valentina

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

3. NGOs and the development policy of
the European Union
Valentina Bettin

INTRODUCTION
The relationship between NGOs and the European Union (EU) has been the
subject of a long and intense debate since the Commission's publication of the
White Paper on European Governance in 2000.1 This debate has focused on
the role that civil society should play at the EU level and how the EU should
make its decision-making process more democratic. This issue is without
doubt an important one. However, the current work limits itself to a question
that is associated but that has been somewhat neglected,2 namely the evolution
of the status of NGOs in a specific area of EU action, that is development
policy. The international order being the legal system of reference, the EU
becomes relevant in this context, not as a state-oriented organization, but
rather as an international organization. From this point of view, the sector of
development is particularly interesting for two reasons. First of all, it is one of
the few areas left where the European Union is entitled only to complement


1 According to the Commission, the aims are to focus on getting `people and
organizations more centrally involved in both shaping and delivering EU policy',
European Governance ­ A White Paper, COM (2001) 428.
2 Most of the scientific contributions focus on the role that NGOs can play at
the European level to make the EU decision-making process more participative. See,
for instance, Peter Hermmann (ed.) ( ...