No less than 80 European and African delegations are expected to attend the sixth EU-African Union Summit, which will be held in Brussels on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 February, with the aim of strengthening the strategic partnership between Europe and Africa in order to bring shared prosperity and joint responses to today’s global challenges.
‘Prosperity, security, mobility’ are the watchwords of the EU/AU summit, which has involved intensive preparations on the European side by the European Council President, Charles Michel, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Council President, Emmanuel Macron, and, on the African side, by the Senegalese president who chairs the African Union, Macky Sall, and the AU Commission President, Moussa Faki.
Apart from a few defections, the vast majority of the heads of state or government - excluding the four countries that were not invited because they were suspended by the African Union (Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea Conakry) - confirmed their attendance, as did the heads of state or government of the 27 EU Member States. The final list of participants and the draft joint political declaration were still to be finalised as intensive negotiations continued on Wednesday afternoon (see EUROPE 12891/10).
“Nearly fifty African heads of state is a huge response in terms of participation. In Addis Ababa [at the African Union Summit on 5-6 February: Editor's note] there were only thirty”, a senior EU official said on Wednesday 16 February. The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, will not attend for internal reasons, a source at the Elysée said.
This highly anticipated summit - which was supposed to have taken place at the end of 2020 but was postponed due to Covid-19 - will begin on Thursday afternoon at 2.45 pm with an opening ceremony, followed by interactive thematic round tables behind closed doors, in which the heads of state will participate. It should conclude with the adoption of a joint political declaration.
It will set out a shared vision for 2030 for a unique renewed partnership across a very wide range of areas and based on common principles such as mutual respect, sovereignty, transparency and multilateralism.
It will focus on prosperity through transformative projects, such as the green climate transition and the digital transition, and will confirm the mobilisation of an investment package of at least €150 billion for the Africa-Europe programme until 2027 under the ‘Global Gateway’ initiative to finance major strategic infrastructure projects, but also for health, youth and education (see EUROPE 12891/10, 12888/1).
Half of the Global Gateway funds (€300 billion) are for Africa, a senior EU official said on Wednesday. This would be a combination of EU multi-annual budget funds, guarantees and private funds for leverage.
Flagship initiatives. Europeans and Africans are expected to discuss emblematic initiatives that could be realised in the coming years thanks to the investment package. On the African side, the AU and its members are said to prefer to be able to continue working on this issue after the summit. These emblematic concrete projects, the list of which will have to be established, could concern energy, biodiversity, sustainable agri-food systems, transport, economic integration, sustainable finance, connectivity between the two continents, the production of medicines, and youth entrepreneurship, according to an EU source, as an indication.
“It is an inventory of what will or can be done in the next seven years (until 2027): Editor’s note), but not a commitment to do so. This annex may be concluded after negotiations after the summit. It would not be the first time that a conclusion was reached after negotiations on certain points”, a diplomatic source stressed.
Seven round tables, divided between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, will deal with: - financing growth; - health and vaccine production; - energy transition, digital transition and transport; - agriculture and sustainable development; - education, vocational training, mobility and migration; - private sector support and economic integration; - peace, security and governance. They will each last 2 hours and will bring together around 20 heads of state to discuss the issues that interest them most.
Emmanuel Macron, for example, will co-chair the round table on the private sector and economic integration and the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, will co-chair the round table on education.
In terms of health and vaccines, it will be a question of taking stock of the efforts made so far and the European objective of delivering 450 million doses by the summer for Africa via the Covax facility, but above all to remedy the problems of deploying vaccinations in a continent where only 11% of the population has been vaccinated, several European diplomatic sources have stressed.
In the short and medium term, it will be a matter of “strengthening local production and African health systems to deal with future pandemics”, a senior European official said on Wednesday.
One billion euros had already been announced in May 2021 by the European Commission to support BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine production capacity in the continent, starting with Rwanda, Senegal (see EUROPE 12887/14) and soon with Ghana.
On financing growth, Europeans and Africans will continue what was launched at the Paris Summit on financing African economies, taking stock of debt and the reallocation of IMF special drawing rights for African countries.
Peace and security. According to a European source, the Europeans will reflect on the type of missions they want to put in place. The EU currently has 11 CSDP missions and operations in Africa, both at sea and on land. The increasing presence of mercenaries from the Wagner group might be addressed.
This round table could be an opportunity to take stock of the announcements expected on Thursday morning from the French president concerning the Takuba and Barkhane missions in the Sahel. Indeed, ahead of the summit, on Wednesday 16 February, Emmanuel Macron brought together in Paris several African and European leaders - including the presidents of the European Council, the Commission and the High Representative of the Union - to discuss the military presence in the Sahel.
According to a diplomatic source, “there is a convergence (of partners) for a withdrawal”, adding that there was a consensus that it is no longer possible to operate effectively against terrorism. “We want to reduce our military footprint and redeploy”, the source added
Trade. The summit will be the opportunity to address the EU’s trade relations with Africa. The Europeans believe that the more its African partners move towards a full African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the better it will be to facilitate trade. They are expected to reiterate their full support for the AfCFTA.
The European Commission also intends to strengthen the 14 Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African countries, as outlined in its February 2021 trade policy review (see EUROPE 12660/4). Increased trade flows to Africa can only help its industrialisation and prosperity, said a European source. The Member States agree on this vision. They also want to focus on the sustainability of trade with future work on rules of origin, for example.
Vaccine patents. The issue of patents on Covid-19 vaccines is likely to be a matter of debate between the EU and the AU. According to one source, the African Union proposed, a few days ago, to include the TRIPS waiver on Covid-19 vaccines (see EUROPE 12889/6).
The 27 EU Member States, for their part, reiterated their position on Monday at the informal meeting of trade ministers (see EUROPE 12890/3): they are against a complete lifting of patents.
However, an EU source said, on Wednesday 16 February, that the EU was ready to possibly extend its June 2021 proposal to facilitate access to mandatory licences. This allows governments to grant companies permission to produce vaccines without holding the patent.
Mobility/migration. The issue of migration will be addressed from the perspective of safe and regular migration as an opportunity, while also addressing the need to combat smuggling networks, a senior official said on the eve of the summit.
“It will be a different perspective. At the Abidjan summit, we worked on the external dimension of migration and migration partnerships. That is why it will be a less important issue than at Abidjan”, said a diplomatic source.
The EU/AU summit in Abidjan in 2017 adopted a joint declaration on migration, committing to tackle the causes of the departure of young Africans seeking to reach Europe (see EUROPE 11916/12). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang, with Camille-Cerise Gessant, Léa Marchal and Pascal Hansens)