Abstract. The main purpose of the research is to identify the achievements and failures of the European Communi-ties/European Union development policies in terms of countering unwanted migration from third countries to Europe. European development policy started in the 1950–1960s due to the colonial past of many European states which felt responsibility for their ex-colonies. Common development policy was based at first on the values, but later transformed to serve the European geopolitical interests. Therefore, the European development policy changed from providing unilateral preferences and gratuitous help to making any aid conditional on the partner’s ability to meet the EU requirements. Thus, the responsibility for development was gradually moved from Europe to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. In the 2000s, the need to prevent massive immigration making it more manageable became one of the regular EU interests. Therefore, the European Union launched the external dimension of its migration policy that was aimed at making development work for migration prevention. This trend contributed to the EU development policy reorientation from the poorest states to the nearest ones. Although the EU development policy was transformed, it failed to meet most of its aims. The main failures were the expectation to limit immigration in the short-term and overestimation of the Union’s normative power. Because of both Brussels’ inability to ensure development globally and the widening gap in the welfare between the ACP states and Europe, the immigration to the EU is unlikely to drop until 2060s.