ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the role of member states in the formulation of common policies in EU international cooperation and development. Member states have restrictively controlled the formulation of common policy norms that aim at harmonising cooperation policies and practice in the EU. Germany has historically sought to limit the EU’s role over its own international cooperation but at least since the end of the Cold War also to strengthen the EU’s international role. The chapter shows how Germany contributed to the formulation of common policy norms. It argues that German policy professionals contributed to the consensus of policy norms for coordination at the EU level by participating in transnational organising. At the same time, they sought to facilitate discursive coordination among like-minded officials. This participation allowed to overcome differences in EU-level policy formulation but did not pacify wider discord between competing understandings of EU effectiveness in international cooperation and development.
