MEPs adopted an own-initiative report by Helmut Scholz (The Left, Germany) on the future of EU-Africa trade relations by 463 votes to 43 with 81 abstentions on Thursday 23 June. They recall that Africa is a “key geographical priority in the EU’s new trade strategy” and make a series of recommendations to strengthen bilateral ties in a sustainable way.
The EU should “invest more efforts in taking the partnership beyond the traditional ‘donor-recipient’ relationship”, they say. This requires better targeted investments in resilient and competitive infrastructure in Africa. This will then enable the African continent to process high value-added raw materials and move towards quality jobs.
MEPs also believe that the EU’s call for a ban on export taxes for African raw materials should be rethought. “For those economies which almost exclusively base their revenues on the exploitation of natural resources, prohibiting such taxes may lock them in aid dependency, while hampering their economic diversification”, they explain.
Helmut Scholz’s report stresses the need to place human and labour rights, respect for the environment and gender equality at the heart of EU-Africa relations. Thus, ambitious and binding chapters on trade and sustainable development should be added to the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), says the European Parliament.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/29x (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)