{"id":2751,"date":"2022-02-17T23:11:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T23:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together"},"modified":"2022-02-18T20:41:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:41:12","slug":"does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together","title":{"rendered":"Does EU-AU need more summits to stay stronger together ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Seychelles. <\/strong><\/span>Efforts to strengthen the relationship between the European Union and the African Union has been ongoing for several years. French President Macron, in his capacity as the current EU President, has plans of \u201ccompletely overhauling\u201d the EU-Africa relationship.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the reasons for the ongoing EU African summit. Over the years similar summits have been held with the aim of ensuring that African perspectives are also prioritised in their relationship.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, there was an African Europe alliance with ambitions of being a \u201ccoherent economic strategy for EU-Africa relations.\u201d That union was intended to deliver on previous commitments for \u201cstrengthened economic and trade relations, through sustainable investment and job creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the likes of China, the US and Turkey are expressing interest in building stronger ties with Africa, the EU still remains an important party in the area of trade and development with Africa. Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, recently described the African Union (AU) as the European Union\u2019s (EU) main partner, stressing that the relationship is key to building peace and security across the continent.<\/p>\n

With the history that exists between the two, one may argue if there is the need for another summit or they should rather deliver on promises made in the past.<\/p>\n

Cairo declaration<\/b><\/p>\n

African leaders\u2014under the protection of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) the AU\u2019s predecessor\u2014came together with the EU for the first EU-Africa summit. Out of that conference came the Cairo declaration, which was followed by the Cotonou Agreement, which, replaced the 1975 Lom\u00e9 Convention and contained practical tools aimed at reducing and eradicating poverty and contributing to the gradual \u2018integration\u2019 of the concerned African countries into the global economy.<\/p>\n

Cotonou Agreement<\/b><\/p>\n

The Cotonou Agreement had three main practical pillars: development cooperation ( aid and loans); economic and trade cooperation (trade and foreign investment); and a political dimension covering matters of democracy, peace, security and migration. Subsequent EU-Africa summits, from Lisbon in 2007 up to Cote D\u2019Ivoire in 2017, resulted in more action plans and strategic declarations.<\/p>\n

Belgium takes step towards restitution of African works of art https:\/\/t.co\/R9dX5GQOZU<\/p>\n

However, each successive \u201calliance\u201d, \u201cpartnership\u201d and \u201cagreement\u201d was launched without a material evaluation of the previous one, with little acknowledgement of their challenges or successes.<\/p>\n

twenty-two years from Cairo, it appears the relationship between both the EU and Africa remains fragile. While the EU is still the continent\u2019s largest export and import partner for goods in trade with Africa, the content of that trade has hardly shifted away from raw materials.<\/p>\n

Extractives still make up over 70% of exports from Africa to Europe, while the EU continues to subsidize agricultural and fishing industries\u2014albeit with new labels of environmental stewardship, adding to the challenges of a myriad of non-tariff barriers facing African products entering Europe. Similarly, there is evidence that while Europe has used trade agreements to protect its intellectual property overseas, but hardly protects that of African countries.<\/p>\n

Over the last 22 years, loans and grants disbursed globally have never risen above 0.5% of European gross national income (GNI) despite a 1970s UN commitment reiterated in EU policy documents to deliver at least 0.7%, with Africa receiving a declining share of this.<\/p>\n

Even the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed this uneven pattern. Not only have vaccination donations been stingy most European countries continue to oppose the waiver of intellectual property rights for vaccines.<\/p>\n

The maltreatment of migrants inside as well as outside European borders have continued, and many European countries have rolled back on paths to legal migration, such as the provision of academic or working visas. In 2018, prior to COVID-19, European countries collectively issued half the number of work permits to talented people from Sub-Saharan African countries than they did in 2008. Article 13 of the Cotonou Agreement commits each side to improve conditions in countries of origin and transit, legal migration and return of illegal immigrants. But Europe has disproportionately focused on the third, \u201creturn of illegal immigrants\u201d at the expense of improving conditions for legal migration.<\/p>\n

In March 2020, in preparation for the Summit which was postponed due to COVID-19, the European Commission produced a \u2018strategic partnership white paper\u2019 which stressed the need to move away from the donor-recipient relationship, and in 2021 launched the \u201cGlobal Gateway\u201d, a \u20ac300 billion worldwide connectivity strategy marketed towards\u2014though not earmarked for\u2014African countries.<\/p>\n

But Europe\u2019s underlying anxiety over the increase in China\u2019s influence across the African continent is evident in both these proposals. EU officials and diplomats repeatedly single out the \u201cno-strings-attached\u201d financial assistance from China to African governments and refer to their own finance as \u201cresponsible\u201d.<\/p>\n

While both the European and African Unions have internal challenges to deal with\u2014including how to bring the Member States on the same page when looking at the independence of decision making and equitable partnership\u2014the evidence suggests there is just one party that must work significantly harder to uphold its side of the bargain.<\/p>\n

With this long history, one would argue if African and the EU need another summit to strengthen their relationship or should rather deliver on their promises.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Seychelles<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Seychelles. Efforts to strengthen the relationship between the European Union and the African Union has been ongoing for several years. French President Macron, in his capacity as the current EU President, has plans of \u201ccompletely overhauling\u201d the EU-Africa relationship. Perhaps one of the reasons for the ongoing EU African summit. Over the years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8,16],"tags":[234,268,392,751,94,676,750,233],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-seychelles","tag-african-union","tag-au-eu-summit","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european-union","tag-international-relations","tag-seychelles"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes EU-AU need more summits to stay stronger together ? - Seychelles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Efforts to strengthen the relationship between the European Union and the African Union has been ongoing for several yea ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does EU-AU need more summits to stay stronger together ?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Efforts to strengthen the relationship between the European Union and the African Union has been ongoing for several yea ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Seychelles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-17T23:11:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-18T20:41:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/sites\/30\/2022\/02\/img-62100448cd440.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Does EU-AU need more summits to stay stronger together ?\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-17T23:11:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-18T20:41:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\"},\"wordCount\":872,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/sites\/30\/2022\/02\/img-62100448cd440.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Seychelles\",\"African Union\",\"AU-EU Summit\",\"Emmanuel Macron\",\"European Union\",\"International relations\",\"Seychelles\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/does-eu-au-need-more-summits-to-stay-stronger-together\",\"name\":\"Does EU-AU need more summits to stay stronger together ? 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