Brussels, 25/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 25 and Friday 26 April, President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and six European commissioners will be in Addis Ababa for the sixth annual meeting with their counterparts from the African Union Commission. Their objective is to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the political dialogue between the two continents, to promote their common interests, and to tackle their common regional and global challenges “from climate action to regional security, eradicating poverty and sharing the benefits of trade and growth”, according to Barroso. The meeting, chaired jointly by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Barroso, comes as part of the joint EU-Africa strategy. It marks the start of preparations for the fourth Africa-EU summit, which is due to be held in Brussels in April 2014.
Participating in the bilateral thematic meetings are European Commissioners Piebalgs (development), De Gucht (trade), Georgieva (international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response), Hedegaard (climate action), Ciolos (agriculture and rural development) and Semeta (taxation and customs union, audit and anti-fraud). (AN/transl.fl)