Wednesday 9 February I gave a speech at a briefing session for EU parliamentarians, policy makers and civil society representatives about the link between the EUs energy security and its development policy. It was an interesting meeting, with a keynote from the Commissioner for Development Pierbalgs, and interesting speeches by Jacqueline Hale, Senior Policy Analyst, EU External Relations at Open Society Foundation and Ruchita Beri, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in India. The meeting was organised in the context of the EDC2020 project, which sought to inform EU policies and vision on development untill 2020.
My central argument was that there are several major contradictions in the EU policies on energy and development and their joint nexus and that the vital question for the future of this nexus should be whether the EU will start to openly accept and deal with these contradictions – and the capitalist political economy from which they emanate – or neglect these with the real possibility that they will become more intense and lead to increasingly negative outcomes for people and environments in Europe, developing countries and beyond.
Bram Büscher 