A Brief History of Africa-EU Relations
Adekeye Adebajo
In the wake of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union (EU) sought to cash in on its multilateral relationships, including with Africa. The EU tried to win as many of the continent's 54 votes - nearly a third of the 193-strong United Nations (UN) General Assembly membership – as possible, in order to sanction Moscow's actions in the world's preeminent diplomatic forum. The EU accounts for 36% of Africa's external trade, and is the continent's largest investor at €261 billion. Brussels also contributed €2.7 billion (90% of the total) to the African Union's (AU) African Peace Facility between 2004 and 2019. Given the escalating sanctions on Moscow, EU countries may be forced to look to African countries like Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Ghana to replace Russia's provision of 40% of their gas supplies.
The EU-AU Brussels Summit
The Russian intervention in Ukraine occurred soon after the sixth joint EU-AU summit was held in Brussels three weeks earlier. Themed "Europe and Africa: A Joint Vision for 2030,." the meeting sought to be more of an interactive dialogue, with African and European leaders divided into seven roundtables. 40 African and 27 European leaders were in attendance. They agreed to prioritise the 2018 AU-EU Memorandum of Understanding on Peace, Security, and Governance which has sought to address the root causes of conflicts; combat instability and terrorism; strengthen African-led peace operations; and implement the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. On climate change, the rich world's annual $100 billion pledge to poorer countries between 2020 and 2025 remains unfulfilled. Migration has become a major concern for the European side – particularly Hungary, Poland, and Greece - with 72,425 African migrants having entered the EU in 2021. African governments, in stark contrast, see migrants as a vital source of remittances, and have thus opposed forced migrant returns from Europe. Both sides therefore papered over their differences at the Brussels summit, reiterating the usual pledges to prevent irregular migration; strengthen border management; improve return, readmission, and reintegration; halt human-trafficking and smuggling; and create pathways for legal migration.
At the Brussels summit, the EU announced a Є150 billion Africa-European Investment Package to support particularly the business, health, and education sectors. A specific Erasmus+ programme will promote collaboration between African and European universities. Brussels made no binding commitments on debt annulment for African countries, beyond supporting debt suspension and the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Drawing Rights, from which African leaders have called for a sum of $100 billion to set aside for the continent. The EU's proposed $171 billion Global Gateway Investment Package aims to support infrastructure, transport, and energy (with 600 million Africans lacking access to electricity), and is clearly designed to counter China's global Belt and Road Initiative. The Brussels summit further pledged to ensure "fair and equitable" access to COVID-19 vaccines, with only 10% of Africans vaccinated, compared to 62% of Europeans. The EU reaffirmed its commitment to making 450 million vaccine doses available to African countries by June 2022 at a cost of Є425 million. This issue has caused much consternation across Africa, with South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, having accused the Europeans of practising "vaccine apartheid." The EU's failure to support African calls for a waiver on vaccine patents, has also stirred some tension.
From Cairo to Tripoli
Before the recent Brussels summit, five other Africa-EU meetings had been held. It is worth briefly retracing this history to understand current events. The first inter-continental summit took place in Cairo in April 2000 between the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the EU. This process eventually culminated in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) in December 2007, which was adopted at a second Africa-EU summit in Lisbon. The strategy sought to make the partnership more equal. Its 2008-2010 Action Plan identified eight priority areas: peace and security; democratic governance and human rights; migration, mobility, and employment; regional integration, trade, and infrastructure; the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); climate change; energy; and science, information society, and space. The third Africa-EU summit was held in Tripoli in November 2010, during which the 2011-2013 Action Plan was adopted, reinforcing cooperation in the same eight priority areas as the first Lisbon Action Plan.
From Brussels to Abidjan
The fourth Africa-EU summit took place in Brussels in April 2014 under the central theme of "Peace, Prosperity and People." The meeting adopted the 2014-2017 Roadmap, highlighting five priority areas: peace and security; democracy, "good governance," and human rights; human development; sustainable and inclusive development, growth, and continental integration; and global and emerging issues. The fifth summit was convened in the Ivorian city of Abidjan in November 2017 under the broad theme of "Investing in Youth for a Sustainable Future," as European leaders increasingly worried about irregular African migration across the Mediterranean. With 375 million African youths expected to reach working age by 2035 and with 60% of Africa's population being under the age of 25, EU leaders were eager to find ways of keeping these young people at home.
Four strategic areas were identified in Abidjan: mobility and migration; economic opportunities for youth; peace and security; and cooperation on governance. But despite Brussels's constant assertion and rhetoric about "equal partnership" and "coherence", as well as its calls for a need to move away from a purely donor-recipient relationship, there were serious divergences between both sides: African governments continued to stress aid and trade, while the Europeans prioritised security and migration. The multitude of Africa-EU priority action plans have also been criticised for lacking concrete implementation plans and measurable mechanisms to monitor progress effectively. Furthermore, there have been calls to channel funding away from operational costs to capacity-building projects.
At the recent EU-AU summit in Brussels, both sides had reiterated their commitment to a rules-based international order centred around the UN. During last week's UN General Assembly vote, only half of the African members (27 out of 54) voted with the EU to sanction Russia's invasion of Ukraine, raising serious questions about how "strategic" this partnership really is.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria's Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa.
Abridged version in Business Day (South Africa), 7 March 2022.
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