Eurafrique
Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson of the Institute for Research in Immigration, Ethnicity and Society of the University of Linköping, Sweden, lecturers in politics and ethnic studies respectively, shed some light on a little-known part of the history of the European Union: the many ideas and plans to create a Eurafrican union ever since the 1920s.
Over the years, many French decision-makers have felt that “no European community was possible without the inclusion of the African colonies of France and other states” of Europe, the authors point out in the preface to the work, adding that “by pursuing this objective, France was able to escape the dilemma of having to choose between its European vocation and its imperial ambitions. From the French point of view, therefore, Eurafrica was a geopolitical innovation that would put Paris at the heart of the European project on the basis of its domination over Africa and ensure the continuation of that domination on the basis of the European project”.
Although any serious idea of Eurafrica was shelved long ago, the prospect of drawing geopolitical advantage from the association of European countries with the European Union is still entertained, as Hansen and Jonsson stress: “Europe believes that by standing alongside Africa, it will be in a stronger position to face Russia, Turkey and China. With adversaries in the East, the EU’s geopolitical alliance with Africa, ‘the largest electoral bloc inside the United Nations’ (as per the EU Global Strategy: Ed), gives the image of an emerging power between East and West, ranging from the north to the south. It is against this backdrop that in September 2018, ‘The Economist’ published an article on this subject area, entitled ‘The Renaissance of Eurafrica: why Europe should focus on its growing interdependence with Africa’. As the choice of the word ‘renaissance’ suggests, the article argues that Eurafrica was already an integral part of the ‘Roman, Carthaginian and Venetian empires’. However, nowhere does it mention the most recent historical manifestation of Eurafrica: its association with the European Union since it was founded in 1957”.
“When it was created, the EEC comprised of not only Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, but also the principal colonial possessions of its member states. In the official terminology, these possessions were referred to as Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) and principally consisted of the Belgian Congo, French Western Africa and French Equatorial Africa. Algeria, which was then part of Metropolitan France as a number of departments, was officially part of the EEC, albeit excluded from certain clauses of the treaty”, the authors explain, adding that “supporters of European integration therefore felt that their community already went far beyond the borders of the European continent and constituted a new sphere of geopolitical influence. Informally or officially, the negotiators of the EEC referred to this sphere using the term Eurafrica and one of the main intentions of the proponents of European integration was precisely to make this entity flesh. This would adversely solve the colonial issue that France in particular, but also Belgium, had been increasingly struggling to resolve. The idea was also to consolidate European interests in a global order that had seen their scope of action shrink away”.
In the 1920s that the Eurafrican project gradually began to take shape. In 1929, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, a fervent proponent of the idea, called for the pan-European colonial management of Africa, stressing everything that the African territories have to offer: “Africa could provide Europe with the raw materials for its industry, food for its population, land for its surplus population, work for its unemployed and markets for its products”. “Coudenhove-Kalergi’s arguments in favour of assimilating Africa came together into a single principal argument in favour of the unification of Europe”, Hansen and Jonsson note, in reference to a “geopolitical calculation” in which the unification of Europe and the common European effort for the colonisation of Africa are two mutually interdependent processes. “Europe’s mission in Africa is to bring light to the darkest of continents”, Coudenhove-Kalergi wrote in his review Paneuropa in February 1929. And in a highly colonial, overtly racist style, he added: “as long as the black race is incapable of developing and civilising its portion of the planet, the white race will have to take charge of it (…). Europe is the head of Eurafrica. Africa is its body”.
“Plans for a Eurafrican bloc reached their apogee in 1948”, when Great Britain undertook to invite other European countries, but also South Africa, to participate in the Eurafrican project, the authors write. In a speech to the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin argued that “the organisation of Western Europe must be economically supported. That involves the closest possible collaboration with the Commonwealth and with overseas territories, not only British but French, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese (…). [These overseas territories] have raw materials, food and resources which can be turned to very great common advantage, both to the people of the territories themselves, to Europe, and to the world as a whole (…). If Western Europe is to achieve its balance of payments and to effect a world equilibrium, it is essential that those resources should be developed and made available”. In autumn of the same year, Bevin stated that should Western Europe take the development of the African colonies in hand, the United States would come to depend on Europe and be eating out of Europe’s hand in four or five years’ time. He made the point that the United States lacks the essential minerals that are available to Europe in Africa. In 1949, however, Great Britain decided to turn away from the European bloc. France, conversely, “believed (…) that European, or Eurafrican, integration is more vital than ever to develop commercial relations with the colonies and ensure absolutely vital investments in Africa that France could not mobilise alone”, Hansen and Jonsson stress, also referencing the principal texts from the Congress of The Hague of May 1948, already making provision for the involvement of the overseas territories in a future European federation. “The European Union must make sure to include in its orbit the extensions, dependencies and associated territories of the European powers in Europe and elsewhere and must preserve the existing constitutional links that unite them”, they add.
During the negotiations for the Treaty of Rome (1954-1957), Gaston Defferre, then French Minister for the overseas territories, made the inclusion of the OCTs a prerequisite for France’s participation in the single market. Despite the technical differences of opinions that would slow down the discussions, the association of the colonies had the support of Germany, but also the other countries, with the Netherlands the most reticent, because they were concerned at the potential costs to their finances. Following the Paris agreement of 20 February 1957, Chancellor Adenauer acknowledged that any geopolitical project with global ambitions contained a risk, but added that “free Europe must be prepared to face this risk, if it does not want to be squeezed in the near future between the peoples of Asia and Africa, should they decide to adopt hostile attitude towards Europe”. The Belgian Foreign Minister, Paul-Henri Spaak, believed that the constitution of the community bringing together Africa and Europe was the most ambitious aspect of the Treaty of Rome: “I take the view that what was done in Paris concerning the territories of Africa is of absolutely exceptional importance: 1. A new market of more than 50 million inhabitants is opening up to the European countries. 2. The treaty is moving away from its purely commercial and economic nature, as it introduces a common policy of the countries of Europe in Africa”, he explained to Albert Housiaux, Socialist member of Parliament and editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper ‘Le Peuple’. As for the head of the French government, the Socialist Guy Mollet, said during a visit to Washington on 24 February that “I would like to insist upon the unity of Europe: it is now a fact. A few days ago, we overcome the final obstacles in its way and today a greater union has been born: Eurafrica, a close association in which we will work together to promote progress, happiness and democracy in Africa”.
By way of conclusion to this richly documented essay, Hansen and Jonsson state that the “Eurafrican association with the EEC was the culmination of a long effort to rationalise the colonial management of Africa and to make it into a shared opportunity for the six founder member states and, potentially, to Europe as a whole”. “The association of the African colonies with the EEC defined the future direction that the African colonies of France and Belgium would take after their independence in the early 1960s. Certainly, with the Eurafrican arrangement, the EEC exercised considerable influence over the process of decolonisation and its outcome, marked by the perpetuation of dependency and cronyism by keeping Africa in its traditional role as a reservoir of raw materials”, the authors write, describing the Yaoundé convention of 1963 and its successors as an instrument for this perpetuation and of a neocolonialism tinged with development aid. They also add that “today, whereas the Eurafrican project is largely forgotten, the content of current EU policy towards its African ‘partner’ shows that its influence persists underneath the surface”. (Olivier Jehin)
Peo Hansen, Stefan Jonsson. Eurafrica – The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism. Bloomsbury academic. ISBN: 978-1-7809-3000-8. 344 pages. £24.99
Deforestation-free agri-food supply chains
This study by the Brussels-based think tank Europe Jacques Delors, jointly authored by former European Commissioner Pascal Lamy, Geneviève Pons, who was responsible for environmental issues in the Cabinet of Jacques Delors, and the political analyst Sophia Hub, examines the EU’s draft regulation aiming to set in place supply chains that ensure the absence of deforestation, with the final touches being put into place before the final version of the text is to be adopted at the end of the year or early 2023 at the latest.
The study reiterates that forests cover 31% of the land surface of the globe and are vital to preserve the climate and biodiversity. Agriculture (90%) is by far the leading cause of deforestation and 10% of deforestation in tropical areas is believed to be directly imputable to EU consumption. Certainly, EU is one of the largest importers of agricultural products in the world, such as cattle, palm oil, soya, cocoa, rubber, wood fibre and coffee, which are the greatest drivers of deforestation. Soya, for instance, is one of the principal causes of forestation and most soya is used in animal feed. According to the WWF, 90% of imported soya is hidden in meat-based products. “A shift to a more plant protein-based and a more sustainable and healthy diet would help reduce the EU’s environmental footprint”, the authors stress.
A further way of reducing consumption would obviously be to reduce food waste, which accounts for one fifth of all food production. This can be achieved by better awareness and education for consumers and by reducing waste at the stage of retail sales, for instance by reviewing expiry dates.
The authors write that the draft regulation, the principal pillar of which is the creation of a due diligence obligation requiring companies to ensure that the products they process or sell do not cause any form of deforestation, “has the potential to deliver impact if emphasis is put on implementing a robust and enforceable legislative framework that is compatible with WTO law and also perceived as acceptable by the EU’s trade partner countries”.
When it adopted its position on 13 September 2022, the European Parliament tightened up the text of the draft regulation. Amongst other things, it wanted the text to provide for impact assessment to be carried out one year after the entry into force of the regulation, to look into the possibility of extending its scope of application to other natural ecosystems (operation of non-forest natural areas: Ed). Although the authors point out that the inclusion of other ecosystems would make the new regulation – particularly in terms of data collection – more complex and argue that it would therefore be preferable initially to limit the text to deforestation, they also argue that extending the scope to other ecosystems should be examined as soon as possible to avoid negative leakage effects. They acknowledge that the new legislation would be reinforced if, as the Parliament called for, it were also binding upon the financial institutions of the EU. “It would help avoid any situation where the EU financial sector could be involved in unsustainable activities linked to products that are banned from being marketed in the EU itself”, they write, adding that “the commodity-based supply-chain approach, addressing direct drivers of deforestation, which the proposed legislation takes, is a good and necessary step, but the more indirect systemic drivers have to be addressed to the same degree. This means, among others, finance and investment”. They observe, however, that the financial institutions are governed by different regulatory system and wonder whether the draft regulation is the appropriate place to impose this obligation. A table comparing the respective positions of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Commission’s initial post is annexed to the study. (OJ)
Pascal Lamy, Geneviève Pons, Sophia Hub. Deforestation-free agri-food supply chains: will the new EU regulation be up to the challenge? Europe Jacques Delors. Policy Paper. October 2022. 21 pages. The report can be downloaded from: https://aeur.eu/f/3ud