ABSTRACT
Decades of seeking to regulate the spaces of interaction have left the EU with a particular mindset of operation and EU agencies with a particular Esprit de Corps (Benson-Rea and Shore 2012). In Chapter 1, I have outlined how the establishment of the Commission’s early external delegations has been accompanied by a struggle of self-definition of external staff to see themselves as technical implementers or as diplomats (Carta 2012). This struggle continues as part of the processes of establishing the European External Action Service. The EU’s relations with Kenya, and more generally with countries where development cooperation has traditionally played a large role, have long been characterised by long-term technical arrangements of development cooperation and trade policy. Part of these largely technical processes of implementing development policy was a standardisation of the spaces of interaction through which trade and development is implemented. This, of course, has to be seen in the wider picture of the EU’s strive for regulating interaction spaces – both internally as well as with its external partners (see Chapter 3). Before the Lisbon Treaty, these dominant and largely regulated policy fields of Africa-EU relations, i.e. development and trade, were also the key areas of Commission competence and where, consequently, collective policy conduct was most pronounced. Foreign policy and diplomacy remained in the hands of the member states. The collective aspect of Africa-EU relations was therefore perceived as largely ‘apolitical’, i.e. less influenced by changes in political relations between the partners, as they might occur through a change of government for example. As a result, in the words of a World Bank official, cooperation with the European Commission ‘can be more stable and objective than that with its member states because it is not so much affected by political fluctuation. The Commission’s approach is more long-term oriented and issue-based. For us, it is easier to work with the EU as it is apolitical, just like the Bank’ (Author interview, February 2008). Similarly, a Canadian official observed that the EC is ‘not so susceptible to political issues and possible bilateral problems. It is more consistent, the EC can ride stormier seas’ (Author interview, November 2008).
