Europe Needs an Africa policy – Defining French and German Stances on Africa
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In European policies, the significance of the relationship with the African continent is rising. This has been symbolically shown during the first outside Europe trip of Ursula von der Leyen as head of the EU-Commission to Ethiopia in December 2019. The sixth EU-Africa summit, which should be held in October 2020 could also be an opportunity to (re)shape the European African policy. At the EU-level, a general consensus about the priority topics exist, including political stability, strengthening state capacity, fighting against terrorism but also against poverty to find local solutions to the triggering factors of migration toward Europe. The EU is also interested in the question of international trade to redefine its position in a context of increasing competition with other emerging partners of the continent, especially China, Russia, and Middle Eastern countries.
France and Germany maintain strong historical, diplomatic and economic relationships with numerous countries of the continent and can thus play an important role in orienting the European Africa policy. Whereas the French involvement has been mainly military to secure the Sahel region, Germany has been engaging in technical development cooperation.
These complementary experiences of France and Germany, which are due to their respective historical links with the continent, as well as their potential role in the negotiation of the European strategy for Africa will be discussed by Sina Schlimmer, Research Fellow at the Subsaharan Africa Centre at Ifri and Martin Mauthe-Käter, deputy director of the Africa-policy division at the German Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and Development during the webinar « Deutsch-Französische Zukunftswerkstatt ».
The event is co-hosted by the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation and the Institut français Bonn.
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