What’s the offer? Assessment of the new EU-Africa strategy

“I want you to work (…) on a new comprehensive strategy for Africa. This should create a partnership of equals and mutual interest. ” Wrote the newly appointed commission president in her mission letter to the partnership commissioner Jutta Urpilainen. The announcement with which the commissioner started to execute her assignment was large: “It is time for a new chapter that brings a step change in our relationship. A strategy that supports Africa's political, economic, governance efforts, and its moves to bolster peace and resilience.” the commissioner said in a first hearing in the European Parliament on February 12, 2020. The strategy is supposed to be further elaborated throughout the year, supposedly until the EU-AU-summit taking place in Brussels in October 2020. However, a clear timeframe is still missing. Nevertheless, first priorities and directions can already be found, while others are missing.

The strategy sets 5 strategic priorities

1. Green Transition and energy access
2. Digital transformation
3. Sustainable Growth and jobs
4. Peace and governance
5. Migration and Mobility

With these it includes some current developments such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) or the AU-Agenda 2063. However, the strategy seems to lack a clear political direction. Political factors such as democracy and human rights are marginalized and only mentioned in the context of peace and security. This negates the values the EU stands for and the important role democracy plays in its foreign and development policies. And it also leaves the transformation processes that we can currently watch in several African countries and the role that the EU can play in these changes unmentioned.

In the field of peace and security, the first draft of the European strategy towards Africa envisages a laudable inclusive approach, which considers civil society involvement and the linkage between peace and democracy. The issues at stake will need specific answers. Recent public statements by Josep Borrel suggest that the EU will rather pursue an approach which is based on counter-terrorism and traditional recipes of security policy that will not do the job. Moreover, to will the EU cooperation with Africa support the African Union and Regional Economic Communities? The political paths chosen through the support of ad-hoc coalitions like the G5 Sahel and most probably, a post-AMISOM ad-hoc arrangement in Somalia, tell us differently. Such approaches contradict multilateralism and the established African Peace and Security Architecture. The conclusion of the European Strategy towards Africa which suggests that both continents should be partners on multilateralism remains therefore thin and delinked from the priorities. It becomes obvious, that it would be a great opportunity to start a strategy with the objective of becoming partners in support of multilateralism and then adjust the policies in the other pillars accordingly. Could that be a genuine offer for political cooperation between Europe and Africa?

A question of coherence

A comprehensive strategy will have to link its pillars in a coherent manner. E.g. sustainable growth and a green transition can only be dealt with if the specific approaches are closely combined, one cannot be achieved without the other. When pursuing a coherent approach, it will then momentarily become clear that some “traditional” policies will neither deliver jobs nor sustainability. As of now, however, policies to deal with urbanization and climate change sound rather like an add-on to traditional recipes. And again: can policy approaches work, when being implemented in authoritarian contexts? Most likely not. A comprehensive strategy towards Africa therefore has to necessarily acknowledge the competition between authoritarian and democratic developments models which manifests itself in today’s Africa and globally. Only that can be basis for an offer for political cooperation with the African states.

The process will be crucial

The further process of the strategy will be decisive for its outcome. Cooperation with African regional and multilateral institutions, in particular the AU and its sub-organizations, will be central. Another question will be, to what extent the strategy will find a coherent approach to the Africa policy approaches of the individual member states. After all, this won’t be the first Africa strategy on the European continent. Last but not least, the development of the strategy is part of a series of other processes at EU level that will redefine the relationship between the two continents. The design of new instruments such as the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), the European Peace Facility (EPF) or the outcome of the Post-Cotonou negotiations are just a few examples. The extent to which these discussions will be brought into line with the content of the new strategy and the extent to which they will succeed in going beyond the prevailing topics of trade, flight and security and finding just and sustainable answers to local and global political transformations will be crucial for a credible cooperation.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation will closely monitor the further development of the strategy. In a consultation process expectations and opinions on the strategy will be collected from our widespread network of African partner organizations. First insights into the results of the consultation process will be given during the event "What's the offer? Expectation on the European Africa year” on April 23 2020 in Brussels.