African Studies
Utafiti: Journal of African Perspectives
Call for Papers: Utafiti is inviting you to submit your manuscript – any topic in the humanities - for consideration in the next issues.
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The year 2004 saw several changes within Europe and Africa with the potential to impact the relationship between the two continents. Africa was not at the core of EU external relations, but achieved growing prominence on the EU's agenda. For years, the neighbouring continent to the south has been losing importance and the Cotonou Agreement was not the showcase its predecessor Lomé had been. This was less because of the reduced engagement of the EU in Africa, but rather because of the increasing European profile in other parts of the world, e.g., the Balkans and Eastern Europe. However, new developments in Africa, not least the formation of AU and NEPAD, posed new challenges to African-European relations and to Europe's reactions to change in Africa.
Africa-Europe relations revolved around several major issues during the year. African crises once again drew a lot of attention in European media and political circles, especially with regard to France’s intervention in Mali and its aftermath and the end-of-year escalation of violence in the CAR and South Sudan. The fate of African migrants to Europe made headlines but did not result in much political action. The future of relations between Africa and Europe was a recurring theme during the year, highlighted by the AU’s 50th birthday celebrations and apparent in several discussions at the continent-continent level and between the EU and African Regional Economic Communities (RECs). African politics also came into focus, particularly the elections in Kenya, Mali and Zimbabwe. Nelson Mandela’s passing was widely mourned throughout Europe. Security cooperation continued to be a major area of focus, particularly in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel regions. The evolution of mutual interests in sustainable economic development resulted in significant progress in tortuous EPA negotiations.
A key highlight of the year was the third Africa-eu Summit, which was held in Brussels. The summit was considered a step forward in relations but left many controversial areas untouched. The year also saw the beginning of the end of a major headache in Africa-eu relations through the completion of epas, which had dragged on for an additional seven years after the passing of the initial negotiations deadline in December 2007. The Ebola crisis presented formidable challenges to Africa that went far beyond the states and people directly affected by the outbreak. Migration continued to be high on the agenda of eu-Africa relations.
Although the main route to Europe lay further east in the Mediterranean, Africa-eu relations continued to be dominated by what has since been dubbed the ‘refugee crisis’. Unfortunately, on this key issue European and African interests could not be further apart: while most African governments would welcome increased opportunities for legal migration to Europe, the eu was politically not willing and therefore not able to move in this direction. (Unless indicated otherwise, in this chapter the abbreviation eu refers to the European Union and its Member States.) Instead, and contrary to its nature as a trade liberalisation project, the eu’s discourse accentuated the desire to ‘manage’ migratory flows and tackle ‘root causes’ of migration.
The year’s agenda was packed with an eu-au summit and the launch of a European External Investment Plan (eip), as well as Africa featuring on the G7 and the G20 agendas – both chaired by European countries. The year also marked the tenth anniversary of the Joint Africa-eu Strategy, which had been welcomed at the time as a fundamental shift towards a more equal partnership, and a move from “aid to trade and investment”. It is telling that ten years later the eu’s discourse was advocating a similar shift, with the eu’s High-Representative for Foreign and Security Policy arguing in September that the eu had made a shift from doing things “for” to doing things “with” Africa, or put differently “from the aid perspective to the partnership perspective”.
The year saw a continuation of the strong contrast between the eu’s discourse of emphasising equal partnership with Africa, and its practice of launching unilateral initiatives towards Africa. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker devoted a substantial part of his annual State of the Union address on 12 September to “Europe’s twin continent”, asserting that “Africa does not need charity, it needs true and fair partnerships. And Europe needs this partnership just as much”. In the subsequent puzzling sentences, Juncker reported that he had consulted his “African friends”, in particular au chair Paul Kagame, and that they had all agreed that “donor-recipient relations are a thing of the past” and that “reciprocal commitments are the way forward”.
While the criticism that the eu is too inward-looking is generally unjustified, the year 2019 did provide some strong evidence for this claim. Such evidence of a Union entangled in domestic challenges prominently included the European Parliament elections in May, followed by extensive horse-trading over the eu’s executive positions during the summer period, a delayed start to the von der Leyen Commission in December, and the time invested in the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Union.
In 2022 the desired narrative of a renewed partnership between Africa and Europe, as adopted in a February summit of heads of state and government, was disrupted by Russia’s war against Ukraine and its global implications. Notwithstanding challenges in the relationship on areas including Ukraine, the green transition, and vaccine equity, several initiatives in the area of trade and investments sought to deepen cooperation between the EU and African states in an era of considerable international competition. This includes the EU’s Global Gateway initiative as well as its support for South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership. At the same time, South Africa’s decision to leave the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States showed that the discussion on rationalising the EU’s fragmented institutional frameworks with Africa is far from over.
Due to Africa's high profile on the international agenda, the continent featured prominently in European politics. The UN stocktaking conference for MDGs served as an international rallying point for discussions, which focused largely on financing for development and Africa's share of global development assistance. For Europe, crisis and reform lay close together.