In the follow-up to the progress achieved in the defence arena, with the first building blocks of structured cooperation in place, the Foreign Affairs Council only had an hour and 30 minutes on Monday 13 November in Brussels to discuss the preparations for the 5th Africa/EU summit and first African Union/European Union Summit in Abidjan (29-30 November). At the end of this meeting, Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security policy, informed the press that this summit would “also partly tackle the questions covered by the security and defence chapter”.
The High Representative said that this fifth bilateral summit was “very important for strengthening our partnership” and will tackle all the aspects of the strategic partnership linking Europeans and Africans since 2007, particularly the political dimension, which is at, “a turning point”. She also highlighted the fact that, “this will not be a summit on migration” as the summit was in November 2015.
The summit priorities have already been established and will focus on youth (see EUROPE 11812, 11788). Ms Mogherini provided assurances that, “all the member states are very committed to work involved in the preparations”.
During the course of the debate, several ministers, followed the line of the Swedish minister, Margot Wallström, who insisted that youth and future job opportunities be treated as a genuine theme and not just take note of the recommendations that the 36 European and African young people would be submitting to the leaders (see EUROPE 11894).
Migration will be an important subject on the summit agenda. This will involve tackling the global implications of this phenomenon, as well as examining migration on the African continent and not just migration to Europe, explained ministers.
They also expressed their wish for a memorandum of understanding to be signed in Abidjan on peace and security. The Swedish minister and Belgian counterpart, Didier Reynders, expressed their concerns about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another postponement in the presidential elections in 2018.
The question of Sahrawi participation and the threat of Morocco not taking part in the summit, was briefly referred to. The High Representative and several ministers, including the minister from France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, were keen to point out that the solution will not involve formal recognition of the Sahrawi Republic. The Minister for the Netherlands, Halbe Zijlstra and Slovak counterpart, Miroslav Lajčák, are amongst those that emphasised the role of the European External Investment Fund for stimulating private investment in Africa. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)