EU Enhances Ties With Africa

Four years after the last EU-Africa Summit in Tripoli, the fourth one took place at the beginning of April in Brussels. The main topic of the summit was “Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace”, and a broad range of topics, such as education, job creation, prosperity, security or migration were discussed. Apart from that, business talks were an important part of the summit as the 5th EU-Africa Business Forum took place just before the summit.

EU trade relations with Africa are very strong; in 2012, the EU bought African goods worth 187 billion EUR and more than one third of total African trade was with the EU. In addition, the EU is the biggest donor of development aid to Africa. But the situation in Africa is changing and the EU seems to be shifting its attitude towards the continent as well. It does not only want to pour money into African development (however, that does not mean that the development aid will end) but wants to make profit on the African boom. As President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, mentioned during his opening speech of the summit, “economic and demographic growth represents an exciting opportunity”, an opportunity that the EU will want to seize. However, as the EU business leaders’ remark, making business with Africa will not be able unless a predictable and stable environment is created there, and the private sector should be engaged in the economic development of the continent. Especially SMEs should be given a proper support to engage in business relations with their African counterparts.

The intention of the EU to enforce its position in Africa is also evident from the expression of continuous support to the Economic Partnership Agreement Development Programme (PAPED) in West African countries for the period 2015–2020. The decision to continue with the programme was made in mid-March and the aim of the programme is to support development of the region consisting of 16 countries and increase trade and investment, while developing the main sectors as energy, transport, industry and also to build a stronger civil society.