Outlook grim for revival of EU-Africa high-level dialogue

By David Cronin

Date: 13/05/04

One year after a landmark EU-Africa summit was cancelled, European officials admit the prospects of relaunching high-level dialogue with African leaders are bleak.

Postponed indefinitely over the row sparked by Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe's attempt to sidestep an EU-imposed travel ban to attend that April 2003 gathering, nobody has a clear idea when the next EU-Africa summit can take place.

"The Zimbabwe issue is a real point of contention," says an EU development official. "It has polluted EU-Africa dialogue. It is not moving at all.

"We have no illusions that we are going to see it resolved during the Irish or [1 July-31 December] Dutch presidencies."

An EU-Africa summit would be of rich symbolic value, allowing the Union to declare solidarity with the continent's struggle against poverty, violence and AIDS in such places as Sudan, Uganda and Congo.

A 'Plan of Action', drawn up at the first (and so far sole) EU-Africa summit at Cairo in 2000 states that measures would be undertaken to use trade to combat poverty, prevent "unsustainable" levels of foreign debt, promote human rights, ensure full primary school attendance for children by 2015 and reduce the spread of AIDS.

The dialogue which was supposed to take place as a result was to be known as the Cairo Process.

This was intended to mirror the Barcelona Process, which underpins the Union's relations with the Middle East and north Africa and is designed both to foster peace in that region and to conclude a series of free-trade accords.

A second summit would also have offered an opportunity to formally recognize political developments in Africa.

Since Cairo, the African Union has been formed, which some analysts have perceived as an effort to bind countries together in a way similar to the EU.

Furthermore, African leaders have given an undertaking that they wish to take greater 'ownership' of strategies to relieve poverty by launching the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development.

But the fall-out from the Zimbabwe dispute has not brought EU-Africa dialogue to a standstill, as talks have continued at a ministerial level.

An important psychological barrier was broken at the EU-Africa dialogue held in Dublin early last month, when both sides agreed to a frank discussion on Zimbabwe, heretofore something of a taboo topic. Still, the prospects of a breakthrough appear remote.

A year after a landmark European Union-Africa summit was cancelled, no-one has a clear idea when the next summit can take place.