The field of foreign aid has gone under two ‘paradigmatic shifts’ since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The first shift, enshrined in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, has been perceived as an attempt to address the numerous criticisms moved to the Western-dominated aid system. The second shift has been a consequence of the (re-) emergence of new development actors, which have offered an alternative model to engage with developing countries. The 2011 Busan Partnership for Effective Development, pitched to represent the beginning of a new era in international development, was endorsed also by the rising powers. While existing discussions analyse the consequences of these paradigmatic shifts, there is a gap in the analysis of the actors that have driven this process. Interestingly, despite being celebrated as the largest provider of aid in the world, the role of the European Union has been overlooked. This omission is rather surprising, particularly at a time in which academic analyses on the role of the EU as a global actor abound. Nevertheless, some observers have argued that the EU has shaped the global agenda on aid effectiveness in the Paris and Accra aid summits but has played a marginal role in the case of the 2011 Busan aid summit. With the aim of filling this gap, this paper provides a longitudinal analysis of the role played by the EU in the global agenda on aid effectiveness. The main research question, therefore, is about what explains variation, if any, in the EU’s performance in international aid negotiations. To do so, the paper goes beyond traditional analyses of the EU’s internal dynamics to concentrate on the external opportunity structure, paying particular attention to the EU’s interaction with established and emerging donors, as well as developing countries.
