Latest news from the EU – Africa summit in Brussels 2022
French President Macron described the EU’s relations with the African continent as “a bit asleep”. Well, with a long delay due to Corona, they are to be awakened again: at the “Global Gateway” – gateway to the world: That’s the name of the new instrument with which the EU wants to recommend itself as a growth accelerator. Worldwide, but especially in Africa. The EU wants to mobilise 150 billion euros for the neighbouring continent alone, primarily through the European Development Bank and the member states, in order to boost public and private investment.
The money should flow into the expansion of roads, railway lines or Internet connections, but also into security architecture, climate protection, health, education and research. Europe is Africa’s most important and “most reliable” partner, said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen just a few days ago during a visit to Senegal.
Important partner in climate and energy policy
The Commission is convinced that the starting point for the partnership with Africa has changed, as has the power imbalance between the richer and the poorer continent. The EU is more dependent on Africa for its climate goals and energy policy than ever before, explains Social Democrat MEP Udo Bullmann. This is exactly where the new opportunity lies.
“Africa is infinitely rich, has an infinite supply of sun, wind and water. The states could become pioneers for renewable energies if we help them to develop technologies, if we establish training partnerships, train engineers and skilled workers who can bring prosperity to the countries. Instead of always just raw materials, Africa should eventually export green hydrogen, for example, that’s what the Commission wants – pushed by massive, European leveraged investments, combined with growth, employment, democratization, security, sustainability in a kind of chain reaction.”
That would be the New Deal with Africa that French President Emmanuel Macron has proclaimed. It is the scenarios of the future that are supposed to literally electrify African states and, above all, convince them that the EU has more to offer them than competitors like India, Russia and above all China.
But what do the African states want?
For the left-wing MEP Helmut Scholz, the new partnership plans are shaped too much by European interests – and not enough by the question of what the African states want, what concepts they bring to this partnership.
“And there is too little for me at the moment to say: Yes, Global Gateway is really a new approach, and not just the repositioning of the European Union as a global player with African support in the great geopolitical and geoeconomic haggling between China, the USA and the EU.”
In fact, trust is probably the real currency with which Europe must guarantee its big plans. After all, EU-Africa relations have long been strained: for example, by dealing with migration, by European agricultural subsidies, by trade policy, the Corona crisis, the lack of vaccine justice.
After all, at the EU-Africa summit in Brussels, the big issues should all be on the table – or at seven round topic tables, each of which Europe and Africa share the presidency. Chancellor Olaf Scholz will moderate the table on “Health Systems and Vaccine Production”.
Source: https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/eu-afrika-gipfel-117.html
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