Bilateral Relations between African and European States

The UK Commission for Africa, consisting of 17 commissioners, nine of whom hailed from Africa (including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania and South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel), delivered its report to the British public on 11 March. The Commission, operating with a secretariat in the UK Department for International Development (DFID), was set up by Prime Minister Tony Blair to prepare recommendations for the G8 summit. The 460-page report, entitled “Our Common Interest”, did not come up with new ideas but provided a comprehensive overview of the state of the development discussion in general. While focusing mostly on donor behaviour and the requirements for aid modalities, the report also tried to make the link to continental African initiatives, such as NEPAD and the AU. In general, the report increased public pressure for the doubling of aid to Africa. As opposed to the Sachs Report, the Commission for Africa highlighted governance as an area of crucial importance. Its understanding of governance, however, mostly covered the administrative and economic framework. Critics pointed out that the report neglected the politics of African states, thereby failing to advocate for necessary changes within Africa. In other words, the report was regarded as being too technocratic and too donor-centric. It was also criticised for recommending the doubling of aid regardless of the political and macroeconomic absorptive capacities of many African states. To a number of G8 countries, it was not clear how the report and its recommendations linked to the G8 Africa Action Plan agreed upon in Kananaskis, Canada in 2002.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo visited London on 9 June ahead of the G8 summit in Gleneagles. Like his colleagues from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, the Nigerian president attended the G8 summit at the Scottish golf resort at which agreement was reached on an increase in aid to Africa (see below). Public interest was encouraged, if not created, by a revival of the ‘Live Aid’ concerts of 1985 under the name of ‘Live 8’. The 1985 concerts in London and Philadelphia had been a reaction to a famine in Ethiopia. The revival was organised by UK Commission for Africa member and former musician Bob Geldorf, who had also been a driving force behind the 1985 concerts. The new concerts were staged in the capitals of G8 states and in Johannesburg, South Africa. They were supposed to rally the public to put pressure on G8 political leaders to “fulfil their promises towards Africa” and polarised both academic and public commentators. Public awareness of the G8 summit was somewhat eclipsed in the headlines by the bomb attacks on the London underground (7 July).

German President Horst Köhler hosted a ‘Partnership with Africa’ meeting in Bonn (5–6 November). Participants were – according to the German presidency – a group of “reform minded African heads of state” and a wide range of intellectuals. These included the AU Commission President Alpha Oumar Konaré, Presidents Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, as well as the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. The meeting was established as an initiative for an annual ‘open dialogue’ between Germany and Africa. On the fringes of the meeting in Bonn, members of the Ethiopian diaspora protested the flawed elections in their home country.

In a departure from past practice, the 23rd Franco-African summit in Bamako (3–4 December) invited all 53 African heads of state and government plus AU Commission President Konaré. France thereby signalled its engagement with continental processes and aimed at gaining a higher profile during this ‘year of Africa’. During the summit, EU Commissioner Louis Michel also engaged with the participants in a separate meeting. France increasingly advocated multilateralisation in its African policy, the French foreign ministry even speaking of a Paris-London-Brussels axis in this regard. In mid-September, Paris announced that several French military bases would be closed and only one per sub-region would be maintained (Dakar for West Africa, Libreville for Central Africa, Djibouti for Eastern Africa). This meant that major installations such as those in Côte d'Ivoire and Chad would soon disappear. Some observers saw in this decision a potentially major shift in French African policy.

Institutional Development in the Regions – EU and AU

The EU's first Strategy for Africa was adopted by the European Council (15–16 December) and was based on a proposal from the European Commission. The paper represents a high-level strategy setting out ‘common objectives’ between the two continents. The strategy's main aim is to improve coherence among the large number of European actors and the differing policies in order to foster the achievement of MDGs in Africa. There is a growing realisation that, as things now stand, sub-Saharan countries cannot achieve these goals by 2015, and the international debate turned to recommending ways to avert this failure. The European Commission declared its desire to pick up on the 2005 Agenda for Africa as formulated in, among others, the Sachs report, the Commission for Africa report, and at the the G8 summit in Gleneagles and the UN Summit on MDGs in September. African organs such as the AU and regional organisations have been consulted by the EU on its Africa strategy. The paper is explicitly meant as a first step towards a joint Euro-African pact. The strategy was thus aimed at reviving the inter-continental relationship that had been stalled at a high level since the 2003 disagreements over participation in the summit by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

The EU strategy contains three main innovations. It creates a single strategy for all of Africa and thus covers regional programmes relevant for cooperation with Africa: the Cotonou agreement, the Mediterranean cooperation programme (MEDA) and the trade, development and cooperation agreement with South Africa. Second, the joint EU strategy for Africa transcends development cooperation. Some interactions between the EU and the AU already include ‘classic’ foreign relations, not least the African peace facility funded through the European Development Fund (EDF), without a common framework having been formulated for different policy areas. And third, the strategy includes both the Commission's and member states' policies and thus aims at intra-EU coordination: i.e., the strategy transcends Commission policy coherence. The EU's Africa Strategy combines policies of the Commission and EU member states within a single, necessarily broad, reference framework. Although the details are still unclear, the EU is likely to establish explicit linkages to African initiatives on governance, such as NEPAD and, in particular, the APRM.

Meetings between the EU and Africa at the ministerial level, below heads of state summits, were often held in a troika format. Thus, the EU was represented by the EU Council presidency, the commissioner and the high representative for common foreign and security policy. These were held in Luxemburg (11 April) and before the Franco-African summit in Bamako (2 December). Issues on the agenda included, first and foremost, security as well as governance, such as questions of election observation and human rights, and regional integration, including regional trade. The EU also continued its relations with sub-regional organisations, for instance ECOWAS. Regular ministerial meetings took place between both institutions in Luxemburg (18 May) and Niamey (4 November). They were chaired by the presidents of both organisations (Luxemburg and Niger), and views were exchanged on a range of issues, including the security situation in a number of West African countries, not least Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire (see below).

EU Institutional Developments with Implications for Africa

Important institutional reform of the EU came to a halt. The fate of important reforms in the EU's external relations remained unclear throughout the year, after the constitutional treaty failed ratification in two EU member states. Reforms with the potential to impact the EU's capacities as a global actor – and thus on European-African relations – included the creation of a European foreign minister and a joint European external relations service. The latter was expected to consist of staff from the EU Commission, the Council and the diplomatic services of member states. The future of the EU constitution remained in limbo. The constitution would have entailed institutional change in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), while development policy would have remained largely untouched, since the constitution would not have changed its status as a shared competence between member states and the Commission. However, the constitutional provisions would have placed poverty reduction first on the EU agenda, rather than having it as one policy goal among others in this area. Additionally, the constitutional treaty contained a clause on humanitarian assistance. However, a number of changes were possible below the treaty threshold and the EU Commission had picked up on the reform agenda by autumn.

In December, the EU agreed on a new development policy. The document, “The European Consensus on Development”, is a revision of the first such EC document of November 2000. As with the earlier document, the policy does not change the legal basis of the regional programmes, the most important of which for sub-Saharan Africa is the Cotonou partnership agreement (with special status for South Africa). Nor does it alter the provisions within the treaties on the EU and the EC. The policy must thus be regarded as a document of intent. The new paper goes beyond the 2000 policy statement by providing a general section on principles and values applicable to the entire EU, including member states. In its first section, the paper mainly summarises international commitments already signed by most EU member states over the last couple of years, for example the international conference on financing for development in Monterrey in 2002 and the Paris declaration on aid harmonisation and alignment of April 2005. The Consensus, however, plays an important role in that it draws the new EU member states in central and southern Europe into the international consensus. This is particularly useful in light of the stalemate over the European constitutional treaty. The DAC (OECD's Development Assistance Committee) consensus is not an ideal fallback option, either, since only four of the ten new EU states are OECD members and none of them is (yet) a member of DAC.

The Consensus, like the previous policy, named poverty reduction as the primary goal of EU development policy and was broadly defined as including “economic, human, political, socio-cultural and protective capabilities”. The long list of activities falling under these headings illustrated the umbrella character of the EU policy statement. This policy addressed the issue of fragile states and difficult partnerships in EU development cooperation. It argued that staying engaged remained crucial to the achievement of MDGs, as about one-third of the world's poor people live in fragile states. With regard to the modalities of EU engagement, working through state systems and strategies was highlighted as being important for the improvement of capacity in fragile states. This issue was also picked up in the Africa strategy in the references to exploring the possibilities for budget support in fragile states.

The second part of the European development consensus was in the policy of the European Community, i.e., funds under the control of the European Commission. This part was predominantly conceptualised by the Commission itself. The Commission aspired to greater flexibility in selecting focal areas in partner countries and argued for the need to react to partner country's choices. The areas of possible EC activity were listed as (i) trade and regional integration; (ii) the environment and the sustainable management of natural resources; (iii) infrastructure, communications and transport; (iv) water and energy; (v) rural development, territorial planning, agriculture and food security; (vi) governance, democracy, human rights and support for economic and institutional reforms; (vii) conflict prevention and fragile states; and (viii) human development, i.e., social sectors. Over and above the eight areas for Community activity, there were at least four issues listed as mainstream: governance/human rights, gender, environmental sustainability and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Thus, potential areas for Community activities – already broad in the 2000 statement – were further broadened and little thematic focus was discernible. In return for greater flexibility of choice, the Commission aimed at reducing focal sectors per country to a maximum of two. In the section on aid modalities, decisions were also referred to the country level. This reference to specific country conditions was also emphasised in the Africa strategy. Furthermore, the Commission pledged to increase development policy coherence while arguing for a clear comparative advantage in linking development and trade policy and in areas where ‘critical mass’ is required (e.g., direct budget support).

In its Consensus, the EU advocated “investing in people […] and investing in wealth creation”. Similarities to the wording of the US Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) were presumably not coincidental. The MCA was initiated by President George Bush to deliver a dividend to countries that “invest in people”, are “ruled justly” and promote economic reform. The MCA deliberately circumvented existing US structures, such as USAID, and thus led to a proliferation of implementation agencies, much deplored in the EU context. The MCA approach was criticised by EU actors for disrupting the coordination and harmonisation efforts of donors in the respective countries, and has allegedly placed additional strains on developing countries’ scarce administrative capacities.

Cotonou Partnership Framework

The partnership under Cotonou faced increasing challenges to its relevance, even though it would continue until 2020 and was not legally affected by any of the decisions or discussions during the year. The principles promoted in the agreement – partnership, country ownership, etc. – have become part of international mainstream in the discussions (even though their practical application remained more questionable). Yet many new initiatives collided with the original configuration of the group of ACP states. This was the case for NEPAD and the AU, where most of the dynamic seemed to lie. It was also true for a number of sub-regional organisations (e.g., COMESA). The EU increasingly engaged with these regions directly, not least in seeking cooperation in security policy and by negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with sub-regions. The ACP-EU agreement provided for a unique institutional framework for political dialogue – including a joint parliamentary assembly – and arguably strengthened ACP issues on the EU's political agenda. Even so, ACP did not have a high profile as a group in discussions. Political consultations were provided for under Cotonou article 96, which allowed for political dialogue if “essential elements” of the Cotonou agreement were violated (respect for human rights, democracy, rule of law). Ultimately, sanctions could be implemented against the violating party. These discussions were held with the governments of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. The situation in Côte d'Ivoire was also an agenda topic in the EU-Africa regional dialogue.

Conflict and Security

The EU Strategy for Africa did not clarify certain issues. For instance, it is likely that struggles for funding between development and security will continue even after the general agreement on an EU financial framework under the UK's presidency. The decision in 2003 in favour of an African Peace Facility (APF) funded by monies earmarked for Official Development Assistance (ODA), for instance, was a difficult one for some actors in development policy. This was usually not discussed as a matter of content, but debates evolved about safeguarding ODA from attempts by other policy areas to gain access to development funding. Funding from the APF was rapidly spent. By February, € 101.87 m of the overall € 250 m had already been committed in support of the AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur, the CEMAC mission in the Central African Republic as well as for a first programme to build the institutional capacity of the AU peace and security directorate.

In parallel with its support for African institutions, the EU stepped up its own military capacity. EU battle groups were being established. Six or seven of the envisaged 13 such groups ought to be ready for operation by 2007. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that his country was ready to provide troops for the creation of a UK-staffed EU battle group, given that Africa may not be able to handle all future crises. In such cases, international intervention would be required. An explicit linkage to potential interventions in Africa was also written into the EU Africa strategy. While some EU countries had not decided on joining the battle groups – Ireland, Denmark, Malta – Estonia agreed to join the group of Nordic troops under the leadership of Sweden (23 May). Each group, consisting of 1,500 soldiers, will have a “lead or framework nation” which will take operational command, based on the model set up during the EU's peacekeeping mission in DR Congo during Operation Artemis in 2003.

The situation in Darfur remained on the agenda. The EU was indirectly engaged in the western Sudanese province with funding through the APF, so as to support the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) financially. AMIS had been deployed as an observer mission to Darfur in June 2004 and was replaced by AMIS II with a broader mandate in October 2004. By the end of the first year of the AMIS engagement, the EU had provided € 80 m for the mission through the APF, and an additional € 30 m had been funded bilaterally by EU member states. At the request of the AU, eight military experts and one civilian police expert provided support to AMIS's management. Yet both the mandate and the equipment of the AU forces were criticised as largely inadequate and as making little difference to the situation on the ground in Darfur. The high representative of EU common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, visited Sudan to discuss the peace agreement to end the civil war between northern and southern Sudan (7–9 October). This included a field trip to Darfur and talks in Chad on the international dimension of the conflict.

Another area of EU security engagement was the police mission (EUPOL) to Kinshasa in the DR Congo . This engagement was funded to the tune of € 4.4 m from the European Development Fund, the EU budget and by EU member state contributions. A separate engagement concerned the security sector reform programme. Additional funding was provided to the UN Mission in DR Congo (MONUC) in support of the forthcoming elections. Prospects for elections in DR Congo were linked to high hopes for the resolution of the conflict in the Great Lakes region.

The conflict in Côte d'Ivoire was also on EU and African agendas. The situation had again become tense and saw increased diplomatic activities, not least by South African President Thabo Mbeki. Achieving sustainable peace was also a topic during one of the regular EU-ECOWAS high-level meetings (18 May). The EU commended AU and ECOWAS mediation efforts in Côte d'Ivoire and supported the Pretoria agreement (14 May), negotiated under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki. The situation remained fragile in Côte d'Ivoire, even though the peace process recommenced towards the end of the year when the former BCEAO head, Charles Konan Banny, took office as interim prime minister (4 December). Throughout the year, France remained part of the UN mission to Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI). Its engagement hit the headlines again on 17 October, when the former head of the French intervention (Operation Licorne), General Henri Poncet, was suspended from duty after allegations that he knew about the circumstances of the death of a suspected criminal in French army custody. The death earlier that year (13 May) apparently involved French military.

The second half of the year saw a heightened refugee crisis in the Spanish enclaves in North Africa. Hundreds of migrants climbed over the three-metre high barbed-wire fence that separated Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco. Many of the migrants had been on the move for several months, if not years, moving northwards from their countries of origin. EU politicians reacted defensively by fortifying the border near both Spanish towns and providing additional aid packages to Moroccan authorities to enhance their border controls. Refugees were deported to Morocco in large numbers. Reports about mistreatment of deported migrants in Morocco made headlines in Europe. Media coverage also denounced some of the home countries of the refugees, who were welcomed back with less than open arms. By closing down this escape route to Europe, other routes were likely to come under more pressure, such as the dangerous passage from Mauritania to the Canary Islands. After the wide media coverage, migration became a topic in EU-AU discussions. AU Commission President Alpha Omar Konaré criticised EU suggestions for deciding upon categories of migrants on the basis of European labour needs as the “intellectual exploitation” of Africa.

EU Development Assistance to Africa

The UK, as G8 and EU president, lobbied for Africa as an issue on the international agenda. Doubling aid to Africa was one of the declared goals of the British presidency during the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July. This would result in an additional € 20 bn annually by 2015. The discussion was fuelled in part by the recommendations in a report by Kofi Annan's special advisor Jeffrey Sachs. Even though the recommendations were not uncontested in academia, the necessity to increase aid to Africa became a mainstream issue in the international debate. More commitments were made to fulfil promises of the 1970s and to reach 0.7% of GNI spent on ODA, as defined by the OECD DAC. In order to achieve this goal by 2015, all 25 EU member states, including the countries that joined the EU in 2004 (EU-10), subscribed to new commitments in May. To meet this implementation timetable, the ‘old’ EU-15 promised to reach an individual baseline of 0.51% ODA as a percentage GNI by 2010. This would correspond to a collective 0.56% ODA/GNI. The ten new EU member states will aspire to a minimum of 0.33% by 2015, that is, the 2006 baseline for old EU member states. An interim target for the EU-10 was set at 0.17% by 2010. Half of this collective EU aid increase is supposed to go to Africa. New member states were establishing bilateral development aid programmes as part of the requirements for their accession to the EU. The Czech Republic, for instance, selected eight target partner countries, two of them (Angola and Zambia) in Africa. Its aid levels reached 0.1% GNI.

Debates persisted over how to raise the additional funding for Africa. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown was a strong supporter of a ‘buy-now pay-later’ approach through an International Finance Facility (IFF). He argued for the immediate need in Africa to achieve the MDGs and suggested borrowing the required funding from the international market (e.g., by issuing bonds) and thereby ‘frontloading’ aid. This, he argued, would provide funding now, which could be repaid after 2015 by aid money, as by 2015 the payments to developing countries could be gradually scaled back. French President Jacques Chirac, on the other hand, suggested levying additional money through an airfare tax, which would have the side effect of taxing arguably environmentally unfriendly means of transport.

With regard to intra-EU financial discussions, an 11th hour deal also enabled agreement on the EU's medium-term budget framework, the so-called financial perspectives for 2007 to 2013. This broad outline for EU budgets until 2013 will have ramifications for aid to Africa. On the financial perspective package 2007–13, the European Council concluded that the EC budget for external actions would increase annually by 4.5%. No decision was taken to include the European Development Fund (EDF) in the budget, as advocated by the EU Commission, so as to give oversight of the fund to the European parliament. Several member states resisted this motion. Instead, the financial perspectives allocated € 22.682 bn for cooperation with ACP countries during 2008–13 under the 10th EDF. The latter is to be funded by all 25 EU member states, subject to inter-state negotiations within the EU and according to their capacities and political will. The decisions on the 10th EDF would in effect mean that the Commission's real share of contributions (from EC budget and EDF) to EU's collective ODA would decrease from 20% to 15% by 2010 and 13% by 2013. This, in turn, would mean an increased proportion of bilateral European aid, and thus challenges for the harmonisation of the 25 EU donors. Ideas floated by Commissioner Michel aimed at increasing co-financing by the Commission and member states, so as to address the decreasing share of Commission funding and the increased need for coordination.

The European Commission prepared a package on aid effectiveness in order to give effect to the commitments of the year. The Commission clearly preferred direct budget support as an aid modality, such support amounting to about one-third of all aid to ACP countries. The Commission suggested that this form of aid delivery also be considered for post-conflict situations and in fragile states, in order to strengthen weak governments and support the establishment of systems in partner countries. Commission priorities for aid to Africa included support to African infrastructure projects and a governance programme, presumably linked to the APRM.

Trade and Development

The EU conducted parallel EPA negotiations with six ACP sub-regions. According to the Cotonou partnership agreement, EPAs are supposed to replace existing non-reciprocal trade preferences and will need to be implemented in 2008. Four of the sub-regions are in Africa. Due to overlapping sub-regional organisations, none of the EU's negotiation counterparts was identical to an existing sub-regional body. West Africa negotiated as part of the ECOWAS constellation plus Mauritania, Southern Africa consisted of a number of SADC countries excluding South Africa (which has had a separate trade agreement with the EU since the mid-1990s), while Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) consisted of COMESA minus Egypt (the latter not being an ACP country). Negotiations with West Africa appeared to be relatively advanced. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson met with West African ministers in Brussels (27 October) to agree on the next phase of the EPA negotiations. While EU and ECOWAS+ had completed negotiations on issues directly related to trade in goods (customs union, trade facilitation, technical standards and sanitary measures), the EU and its West African counterparts could not agree on other matters (services, intellectual property rights, rules on competition and investment, impact on production sectors). The EU Commission insisted that development aid and EPAs were interlinked in several ways. This was a crucial element in the debate with some groupings of countries, not least West Africa. While the EU Commission emphasised the developmental value of functioning trade regimes, African states often highlighted their lack of capacity to enter meaningfully into an internationally competitive market.

Aid and trade were increasingly linked in other international discussions as well. During the Hong Kong WTO round in December, the EU committed to € 1 bn annually in trade-related assistance (aid for trade) by 2010. This was an acknowledgement that LDCs do not lack market access mainly because of tariff barriers, but mostly lacked sufficient competitiveness on the world market. Doubts persisted about the character of these aid-for-trade monies as additional funding and the possible distortion of legitimate demands by developing countries, but much will depend on the outcome of ongoing discussions. The eligibility criteria for and modalities of this new aid tool are still unclear and subject to negotiation. Will the assistance be paid to countries or economic sectors, as compensation or as investments for restructuring industries, etc.? Different models exist on how to target aid, from compensation for the ending of the EU rum protocol (adjustment aid to the affected Caribbean industries) to compensation for changes in the EU banana trade regime (payments to states to enable diversification of the export industry). The latter was relatively successfully used by Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon, but had little effect in other countries. An additional decision will be required on the governance structure of the funds, which might be linked to the EDF, the WTO, or become an additional ‘vertical fund’ under a separate administration.

In June, the Commission tabled its proposal for reform of the EU sugar regime, which was agreed by agricultural ministers (24 November). The reform abolished the complex quota system, which was in violation of WTO rulings. Additionally, the sugar price is to be reduced by 36% over the next four years. At € 404 per tonne, white sugar (as compared to the previous € 632), the price is still considerably higher than the world market price of around € 200 over the last decade. With the changes to this regime, world sugar prices are likely to rise. While this is beneficial for many developing countries that are more competitive on the world market, many African countries are more likely to be losers from this reform. This broad circumstance, however, will depend on, among other things, whether the country is a net sugar importer or net exporter and whether it has LDC status, which – after a transition period until 2008 – will allow free EU market access (including sugar).