On Tuesday 25 October, the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) and African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Council renewed their commitments to boost cooperation between the two continents on peace and security in order to consolidate peace where it has been restored, as they explain in a joint press release published after their ninth joint consultative meeting.
The two committees stressed their determination to deepen the existing partnership for promoting peace and security and preventing crises and conflicts, and to provide support to peace consolidation and post-conflict reconstruction on both continents.
At the meeting, the two bodies examined the situation in a number of African countries in crisis, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Somalia, the Sahel, Mali, South Sudan, Burundi and Guinea Bissau. Although the subject was not officially on the agenda, several delegations raised the question of South Africa and Burundi’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.
At a retreat the day before, the two sides discussed counter-terrorism, radicalisation, violent extremism and migration, and agreed that these phenomena required continued close cooperation. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)