Brussels, 02/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - MEPs and African parliamentarians want to work together to ensure greater democratic control of the EU-Africa partnership in order to boost democracy and transparency in relations between the two continents. They are calling for regular specific policy dialogue at ministerial level on the EU-Africa strategy, focussing on a limited number of realistic key objectives, with peace and security top of the list. This is the essence of a joint call made at the fourth EU-Africa summit, which opened in Brussels on Wednesday 2 April on the theme of investing in people, prosperity and peace.
In a joint statement issued by the European Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) the day before the summit after the fourth EP-PAP parliamentary summit, parliamentarians said that civil society, which is working to strengthen the EU-Africa partnership, cannot substitute for democratically elected parliaments and they therefore call for a clear distinction to be made between the two categories of players in the EU-Africa partnership.
Peace and security top the priority list. Peace and security should be the top objective, pursued through aid from the peace fund for Africa and developing the African peace and security architecture, and the parliamentarians want macroeconomic governance (fair and efficient tax systems and tackling tax evasion), economic development, trade and social issues to be the other priorities for their dialogue.
On the latter issue, the parliamentarians call for the setting of minimum social security standards across the African continent. They want political decision-makers to prioritise putting an end to early marriage and genital mutilation by tackling the roots of these evils (poverty, ignorance and cultural traditions) in order to combat the society-based inequality that women and girls suffer. MEPs and African parliamentarians expressed concern about the increasing levels of discrimination, persecution on the grounds of race and religion and the flouting of minority rights in some countries in Africa, but they were unable to agree on tackling the sexual orientation-based discrimination in countries such as Uganda.
The parliamentarians noted the rise in conflicts over politics, ethnicity and religion, along with the terrorist threat, state fragility, corruption and violations of human rights, which are still big issues in some African and European countries and which jeopardise achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. They call for the commitment to tackle impunity to remain a priority for the EU-African dialogue on human rights. (AN)