Coherence and Development Policy

The debate on the implementation of the development sections of the Maastricht Treaty can be said to revolve around three Cs: co-ordination, coherence and complementarity. This chapter will deal with one of these three Cs, namely, coherence as defined in Article 130v of the Treaty on European Union (EU). The term refers not only to the coherence of development policy but also to coherence between the development objectives mentioned in the Union Treaty and other policies of the Community. In the first section, the term coherence is explained, the legal basis for coherence of policy described and various forms of incoherence identified. In the second section, the measures taken since 1992 ¹ and the debate hitherto are outlined and, finally, some mechanisms to achieve greater coherence of development policy in the EU are proposed.