POLICY
The European Union is a global player by virtue of its population and economic power. With 500 million inhabitants, it accounts for over 25% of the world’s gross domestic product and a fifth of global trade. The Union is also an active political player, with regional (in particular in its neighbourhood) and global security interests and responsibilities. In particular, it shows solidarity by providing more than half of all international development aid and is the world’s biggest donor of humanitarian assistance. It is actively involved in protecting human rights, promoting a decent work agenda, other universal values and respect of international environmental and social conventions.
The EU is increasingly active in conflict prevention, crisis management and peace building, through EU-led crisis management missions and EU crisis response and stabilisation instruments. The EU also supports UN and African Union peacekeeping and peace-restoring missions in fragile or war-torn countries. Moreover, the EU is committed to supporting the multilateral system and its reform, the Doha multilateral trade negotiations, the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) negotiations on climate change, the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) negotiations on biodiversity, negotiations on other multilateral agreements, G-8 and G-20 reforms and the global governance agenda.
External policies are therefore a major field of action for the EU, which has been reinforced within the new institutional framework of the Lisbon Treaty.
The EU uses financial instruments for external relations to support the implementation of these external policies, in particular in:
(1)Promoting and defending EU values abroad. Putting human rights, democracy and the rule of law at the core, recent events in different parts of the world call for a review of EU assistance to transitional and democratic processes and to civil society.
(2)Projecting EU policies in support of addressing major global challenges such as combating climate change, reversing biodiversity loss, and protecting global public goods and resources should be further strengthened. The Commission proposes to develop a proactive agenda of EU and mutual interests with third countries, with a specific focus on strategic partners.
(3)Increasing the impact of EU development cooperation, with the primary aim of helping to eradicate poverty. The EU will concentrate aid on those areas where the EU has particular expertise to offer, differentiating among partner countries and regions to ensure that aid resources are allocated according to needs, capacities, interests and commitments; improve aid coordination and policy coherence for development; and ensure adequate financing for development. A pan-African instrument will be created to support the implementation of the Joint Africa Europe Strategy, focusing on the clear added value of cross regional and continental activities. It will be flexible enough to accommodate contributions from EU Member States, African States, financial institutions and the private sector.
(4)Investing in the long-term prosperity and stability of the EU’s Neighbourhood. The aim of establishing an area of stability, prosperity and democracy will be pursued both through preparing (potential) candidate countries for membership and through our renewed neighbourhood policy. The EU will be active in supporting democratic values and principles in its neighbourhood and a more equitable distribution of the benefits of growth through greater political cooperation and deeper economic integration to the south and the east.
(5) Enhancing European solidarity following natural or man-made disasters. Upholding the internationally agreed principles of humanitarian law and upgrading its capacity, in humanitarian aid and civil protection, the EU budget will support actions to anticipate, prepare for, prevent and respond more quickly to disasters and engage more flexibly in development actions to rebuild from crisis and to develop resilience for the future.
(6) Improving crisis prevention and resolution. EU action on crisis prevention and resolution, preserving peace and strengthening international security, including enhancing EU capacities for crisis preparedness will be increased.
An open Europe, operating within a rules-based international framework, is the best route to exploiting the benefits of globalisation that will boost growth and employment.

INSTRUMENTS
The Commission proposes the following structure for the EU’s future external action instruments:

>Development cooperation
The Commission proposes to build on the current Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) as regards its geographic and thematic scope. It proposes that the European Development Fund (EDF) covering cooperation with ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific countries) and OCT (Overseas countries and territories) should remain outside the budget for the period of the next MFF.

>Instrument for enlargement countries
A single integrated pre-accession instrument is proposed as the financial pillar of the Enlargement Strategy, encompassing all dimensions of internal policies and thematic issues. The aim will be to ensure that candidate countries and potential candidates are fully prepared for eventual accession. Emphasis will be put on socio-economic development, on regional cooperation, on adopting and implementing the acquis, and on preparing for managing internal policies upon accession. It will be implemented through national/multi-beneficiary programmes agreed with the beneficiaries and will also mirror the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), including their refocusing on delivering public goods. In addition, political and financial crisis-related instruments (Macro Financial Assistance, Instrument for Stability) will continue to be available for use in enlargement countries, when needed.

>European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI)
The European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) will benefit the EU’s neighbouring countries supporting deeper political cooperation, closer economic integration with the EU and support to effective and sustainable transition to democracy. Cooperation with the EU’s neighbours will be based on the principle ‘more for more’, in line with the conclusions of the Commission Communication ‘A new response to a changing neighbourhood’. The ENI will provide the bulk of the EU funding to the Neighbourhood and will be complemented by other external instruments as required.15

>Partnership Instrument
This new programme will provide ad hoc support for cooperation with all third countries (non-developing and developing) with a specific focus on strategic partners / emerging economies. It will finance activities to support the projection of EU policies abroad through bilateral cooperation and common approaches to challenges, economic partnerships and business cooperation, public diplomacy activities and networks, people-to-people links; the conduct of policy discussions and joint activities with individual partner countries; and the promotion of trade and investment and regulatory convergence with strategic partners.

>Promotion of human rights worldwide
A reinforced European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) will focus on two activities. First, there will be strengthened support for the development of thriving civil societies and to their specific role as actors for change and in support of human rights and democracy. This will include a reinforced capacity for the EU to react promptly to human rights emergencies as well as stronger support to international and regional human rights observations and mechanisms. Second, support will be given to electoral observation missions and improvement in electoral processes.

>Solidarity and aid for populations confronted by natural and man-made disasters
Humanitarian Assistance and Civil Protection will be strengthened and continue to follow a needs-based and principles-based approach.
–The Humanitarian Aid Instrument will provide response to natural and man-made disasters, based on the international principles of humanitarian law, and through the use of specialised organisations.
–The Civil Protection Mechanism will respond to natural and man-made disasters in third countries through coordination of civil protection agencies of EU Member States.

>Crisis prevention and management
There are several strands to the EU’s work in this area:
•Reaction to crises through the Instrument for Stability (IfS), including natural disasters, focusing on conflict prevention, peace building and state building. Its long term capacity will address global and trans-regional threats such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fight against terrorism and organised crime, prevention of illicit trafficking, etc.
•Addressing the short term financing needs of countries subject to stabilisation and adjustment programmes through Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA).
•Promoting nuclear safety in support of international regulations through the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC). The objective will be to support the promotion of a high level of nuclear safety, radiation protection and the application of efficient and effective safeguards of nuclear material in third countries.
•In addition, the Common Foreign and Security Policy budget will support actions without military and defence implications.

IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation of the new programmes will be further simplified, in particular to embrace aid effectiveness. The new instruments will, where appropriate, embed mutual accountability in the allocation and disbursement of funds. Increasing synergies in the use of external funds for multiple EU policy objectives will be sought, e.g. for delivering on the EU’s poverty reduction and climate and biodiversity finance commitments.
Increased flexibility in external actions will also be proposed. Budget mechanisms outside the financial framework for coping with large unforeseen events will be reinforced (Emergency Aid Reserve, Flexibility Instrument).
Simplification will be delivered through a clearer delineation and a reduction of overlaps between the instruments, so as to identify them individually with clearly defined policy objectives. Simplification of rules and procedures for the delivery of EU assistance will also be proposed, notably for programming to be conducive to joint action with Member States.
Further use of innovative financial instruments is proposed under all instruments (in particular through regional investment facilities), which should allow a greater share of grants to be blended with loans, so as to mobilise additional funding to cover the investment needs of partner countries.
It is considered that democratic scrutiny of external aid must be improved. This could be achieved by the use of delegated acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty for certain aspects of programmes, not only placing the co-legislators on an equal footing but also ensuring more flexibility in programming. For the EDF, it is proposed to bring scrutiny into line with the DCI, whilst taking into account the specificities of this instrument.

PROPOSED BUDGET ALLOCATION FOR 2014-2020
All figures in constant 2011 prices
Total proposed budget 2014-2020 €70 bn
of which
•Development Cooperation Instrument €20.6 bn
•Pre-accession instrument €12.5 bn
•European Neighbourhood Instrument €16.1 bn
•Partnership Instrument €1 bn
•Instrument for Stability €2.5bn
•European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights €1.4 bn
•Common Foreign and Security Policy €2.5 bn
•Humanitarian Aid Instrument €6.4 bn
•Civil Protection and Emergency Response Capacity €0.2 bn
•European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps €0.2 bn
•Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation €0.56 bn
•Macro-financial Assistance €0.6 bn
•Guarantee Fund for External Actions €1.26 bn
Emergency Aid Reserve €2.45 bn
Total proposed budget under 11th EDF €30.3 bn

15) Russia will continue to benefit from the cross-border and regional cooperation support under the ENI