The Politics of EU Food Aid Policy from Delors to Von der Leyen

This book provides a theoretically informed, empirically grounded account of the origin, expansion, and institutionalization of the EU's action against food poverty and severe material deprivation. In doing so, the analysis spans more than three decades, from the quasi-accidental onset of the first food aid program in the late 1980s under the Common Agricultural Policy to its current, puzzling, and contested consolidation as a narrow yet symbolic element of Social Europe's architecture.

More precisely, the study offers an in-depth examination of the governance and implementation of European Food Aid Policy (EFAP) while exploring the political and institutional dynamics shaping its trajectory over time. Deploying primarily a historical institutionalist approach, the book addresses two key questions: Why did EFAP emerge despite the EU’s limited role in anti-poverty policies? And how did it survive and consolidate, particularly during the 2008–2014 critical juncture, despite growing adverse conditions? By treating EFAP as a “least-likely case” for European integration, the research sheds light on broader political and institutional dynamics behind the making of Social Europe.

This in-depth study will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in the field of EU social policy and policymaking, as well as, more broadly, in EU studies and comparative welfare state research.

Ilaria Madama is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Milan, Italy, with a specialization in comparative welfare state research and European social governance. Her research interests include antipoverty, social inclusion, family and labour market policies/institutions, from both sides of policy trajectories and politico-institutional dynamics.