Why Europe Struggles to Turn Mutual Interests into Concrete Partnerships

We want to transform development cooperation towards mutual interest partnerships. We form expert commissions and round tables. But instead of inviting people outside of the development community and bringing in people that do things differently, we mainly stick to the old guard of leaders that have shaped the same system we now want to change.

Author: Julius MURKE

I currently come across numerous workshops and expert panels discussing how Europe should operationalise its ambition to build international partnerships around mutual interests. What strikes me is that these discussions usually center more on reservations than producing concrete proposals for implementation.

I find this somewhat puzzling. I can think of several highly concrete initiatives where European strategic interests and development objectives seem to align quite naturally. But then again, I am not surprised. Over the past decade, I have seen numerous commissions established to reform global health governance, international trade or development cooperation. Again and again, established leaders are brought together to rethink systems they themselves have helped shape. Logically, the resulting proposals often remain close to existing approaches.

Progress and regression at the same time

To be fair, Europe has made significant progress. Global Gateway increasingly integrates development cooperation, investment and trade. The EU's partnership with South Africa on clean industries and strategic value chains is one example of a more integrated approach, linking European economic security with local industrialisation and value creation.

The proposed Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034 also signals an important shift. The European Commission proposes approximately €200 billion for the new Global Europe instrument, a nominal increase of around 75% compared with current spending levels. More importantly, the proposal would further integrate previously separate instruments of European external action, including development cooperation, humanitarian assistance and pre-accession support.

Nevertheless, progress seems slow and uneven. The most tangible examples of strategic partnerships remain concentrated around critical minerals, energy and clean industrial value chains.

Where is the defining technology of our time?

Digital technology and artificial intelligence are arguably the most consequential factors shaping future economic competitiveness and geopolitical power. The European Commission itself acknowledges that Europe relies on non-EU providers for more than 80% of its digital products, services, infrastructure and intellectual property. Many of its international partners face similar dependencies. This creates an unusually clear opportunity for mutually beneficial cooperation. Both Europe and its partners have strong interests in jointly developing open technologies, interoperable digital infrastructures and sovereign data and AI capabilities.

Consider the health sector. European pharmaceutical and medical technology industries will increasingly depend on data and AI. Jointly developing federated health-data spaces with African partners could strengthen local health systems and technology ecosystems while enabling research, AI innovation and technological development on both continents.

Such initiatives are technically feasible. We can identify the architectures, standards, governance arrangements and investments required to implement them.

The EU has begun addressing digital sovereignty internally and already supports international digital cooperation. Yet joint technology development and shared digital sovereignty remain much less prominent in its external partnerships than investments in physical infrastructure. I suspect this is partly explained by the professional backgrounds of those shaping the agenda.

Even in development cooperation projects labelled as digital transformation, I often encounter surprisingly few people who actually know how to develop technologies. Technology is frequently treated as something to be procured or implemented after strategic decisions have been made, rather than as a field of expertise essential to identifying new strategic opportunities. You cannot recognise opportunities that you do not know are technologically possible.

Applying the lessons of strategic innovation

This brings me to a more fundamental concern. Strategic innovation has long examined how organisations can respond to disruption. One of its central lessons is that established institutions tend to reproduce the assumptions and approaches that made them successful in the past. Transformation therefore requires deliberately bringing in people with different expertise, particularly those who recognised emerging challenges and started experimenting with alternatives before change became an institutional priority.

Yet we do not seem to apply this principle now. Germany's newly established North–South Commission illustrates the problem. I strongly welcome its ambition to rethink international cooperation. But its membership largely follows the familiar approach of bringing together prominent figures who have already held influential positions in politics, international organisations and established institutions.

There is an uncomfortable structural conflict of interest here. Those who decide who participates in reform processes are often themselves part of the institutional structures being questioned. They naturally draw on familiar networks and people with established authority.

I recognise that this argument may sound self-serving coming from someone working on practical digital transformation projects. Yet that experience is precisely what makes the disconnect visible to me. I see concrete possibilities for mutually beneficial cooperation that rarely seem to reach the level where strategic priorities are defined.

We should select people for reform processes not only because they have been in a leadership position, but because they have demonstrated the ability to anticipate change and develop new approaches.

We have an entire field of strategic innovation dedicated to understanding how organisations respond to disruption. It is time we applied its lessons to international cooperation — starting with who gets to identify opportunities, define priorities and shape strategies.