Towards a new EU-Africa Strategy

On 9th March 2020 the joint communication ‘Towards a Comprehensive Strategy with Africa’ was released by the European Commission and the European External Action Service. The Communication will be used as a basis for talks between the European Union and their African counterparts when defining the new EU comprehensive strategy with Africa, which will be approved at the EU-African Union summit in October 2020 in Brussels. CONCORD Europe, representing 2600 NGOs in Europe and abroad, offers here an initial reaction to be followed up shortly in more detail. We welcome the fact that the European Union, by unveiling the Joint Communication is reviewing and updating its partnership and cooperation with African states and the African Union, but it is our view that such an important process, reflecting the ambitions of a ‘geopolitical Commission’, would have required the involvement of the African partners from the start and a much more inclusive process. In addition, a new EU strategy with Africa should take into consideration the ongoing negotiations on the EU-Africa protocol of the future EU-ACP agreement: these two processes should mutually influence and reinforce each other.