Brussels, 21/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The main themes of the annual meeting of the Colleges of the European Commission and the African Union Commission being held in Brussels on Wednesday 22 April will be migration, climate change, African crises, peace and security, trade and post-2015 development. The joint meeting will take place at the European Commission headquarters and will be chaired by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma from the African Union Commission.
This will be the seventh meeting of this kind, but the first for Juncker and the first big meeting since the fourth EU-Africa summit in April 2014. It will provide the opportunity for the two institutions to assess the EU-Africa relationship and discuss areas of bilateral cooperation like international issues of common interest.
“This summit will give us the opportunity to put new emphasis on our cooperation in the area of migration at a particularly difficult time for us all. In the context of the current crisis in Libya and the dramatic situation in the Mediterranean we must strengthen our cooperation with North Africa and the countries of sub-Saharan Africa in order to build capacities for managing migration and borders with the support of international organisations that are already active on the ground”, said Juncker on Tuesday. The discussion on this issue will come just after the joint Foreign Affairs-Home Affairs Council which took note in Luxembourg of a 10-point action plan on migration, and will come just before the extraordinary European Council that has been called urgently in Brussels on Thursday (see EUROPE 11298).
“Africa expects three things - humanitarian aid to address the refugee flows; the root of the problem to be settled through development and education; and an end to be put to the criminal activity. This is also what the EU wants. We need the AU to act effectively”, a senior EU official told European press.
The talks will cover the following subjects: - growth and investment, trade, infrastructure and energy, agriculture, the business environment, the contribution of women to economic growth and jobs, migration and migratory flows; - the universal sustainable development goals post-2015 and the international climate negotiations; - conflicts (Libya, Sahel, Horn of Africa and CAR). This subject will be addressed with High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and European Commission Vice-President Federica Mogherini and African Commissioner for Peace and Security Smail Chergui.
According to a senior official, the results desired from this meeting are “to strengthen relations between the two Commissions and to make progress on integration, and to develop common positions on the climate and the post-2015 objectives, given that the EU and Africa will have more weight in the negotiations if they have joint objectives”. (Aminata Niang)