EU sees Africa in new light as China steals a march

The EU-Africa summit, to be held in Lisbon next week (8-9 December), is a highpoint in relations between the two continents.

It will be the first time in seven years that such a summit has taken place. The last scheduled summit in 2003 was cancelled because of a dispute over the attendance of the President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe. Next week’s summit comes just over a year since the first ever China-Africa summit. It was this summit that put trade between Africa and the emerging economic giant at the top of the agenda and made many European politicians think twice about boycotting next week’s summit, again over Mugabe’s controversial attendance.

Many believe the summit, and the EU-Africa strategy that will be launched in Lisbon, mark a genuinely new departure for EU-Africa relations. "The objective is to restore the wider political dialogue with Africa and to make, not a European strategy for Africa, but a joint strategy, for the first time in history," said José Socrates, prime minister of Portugal and the host of the summit.

Louis Michel, the European development commissioner, said earlier this year: "The Lisbon summit will offer the best opportunity to demon-strate that Europeans stand ready to launch audacious initiatives and to reaffirm our commit-ments towards Africa."

While the summit will be symbolically important in declaring that the leaders of the EU and Africa want to advance their co-operation, the EU-Africa joint strategy is intended to underwrite the political symbolism.

The strategy sets out areas for future co-operation on security, human rights, trade, climate change, energy, migration and agriculture. "It is now time for these two neighbours, with their rich and complex history, to forge a new and stronger partnership that builds on their new identities and renewed institutions, capitalises on the lessons of the past and provides a solid framework for long-term, systematic and well integrated co-operation," the strategy states.

John Kotsopoulos, policy analyst with the European Policy Centre, said: "This is definitely something new. It is the first attempt at a joint open strategy with a consultative process."

"There is a realisation that there has to be a new partnership. The global context has changed," he added.

The strategy also aims for the first time to follow-up the areas identified for co-operation. "All the parties are sensitive to ensuring a follow-up. They don’t want the kind of platitudes that we saw from the Cairo summit seven years ago," said Kotsopoulos.

"Nothing is binding and it’s still vague in large sections but it may set down a good first step," he added.

Joanna Maycock, of the non-governmental organisation ActionAid, questioned whether the drafting of the strategy involved a genuine consultation between the two sides. "We’re not quite convinced Africa has had enough time to work on this," she said.

Maycock questioned where the strategy would fit into the plethora of other commitments made to Africa through other treaties and agreements such as the Cotonou Agreement, or the various Euromed agreements.

NGOs also point to the Economic Partnership Agreements being finalised by the Commission and the African, Caribbean and Pacific states to facilitate trade development, which they say show the imbalance in the relationship between the EU and developing countries. The Commission disputes this, insisting the EPAs which will bring their economies onto the global market.

Haleh Bridi, World Bank special representative to the EU, said that the new dynamics created by the interests of China, Brazil and India in Africa should be welcomed given the new investment it will provide. "We also do have concerns. We are having discussions and work with the Chinese and African sides to ensure there is transparency as much as possible and that investment is pro-poor and pro-development," she added.

With this new interest from Europe and the emerging economic giants in Africa as a trading partner, energy source and market for products, Maycock said that this could be a chance for the continent to take advantage of the situation. "The question is: is Africa capable and able to take advantage of this competition?" she asked.

The EU-Africa summit, to be held in Lisbon next week (8-9 December), is a highpoint in relations between the two continents.