European and Africa ties stressed on EU - AU College meeting

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Dienst voor Extern Optreden (EDEO) i, gepubliceerd op donderdag 7 april 2016.

The EU High Representative Federica Mogherini i co chaired today in Addis Ababa the African Union and European Commission meeting (c2c) together with the president of the AU,Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The EU High Representative Federica Mogherini co chaired today in Addis Ababa the African Union and European Commission meeting (c2c) together with the president of the AU,Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The meeting was attended by Commissioners Thyssen i, Dombrovskis i, Ansip i, Mimica i, Bulc i and Stylianides i.

"I believe that our C2C meetings and this one in particular symbolises perfectly well the cooperation, convergence and concord between these two sister organisations which have been driving and continue to drive regional integration in both Europe and Africa.", she said in the opening address.

"The C2C annual meeting is besides our summits of Heads of State and Government one of the most important - probably the most important - political meeting of the Africa-EU partnership", she underlined, "Africa and Europe are each other’s closest neighbour. Africa has 54 countries and the European Union 28 Member States have a shared history in many ways a difficult and a heavy one, but most of all we have a common present and a shared future that we have the responsibility to build together."

On the EU Africa relations she said: "The European Union is the biggest donor to Africa and that is quite self-evident. It is less evident - and I think is on our interest to highlight is the biggest trade partner for the African continent. 28% of Africa’s total trade (import plus export), takes place with the European Union and it has increased by 50% - 50 not 15%, 50! - in recent years. I believe we are also key political partners for each other in our continents and on the global multilateral scene. Among the priorities of our partnership, peace and security occupies a particular place. Since 2003, the European Union through the Africa Peace Facility has committed more than €1.7 billion to support the African Union’s peace support operations, the African peace and security architecture, African Union’s mediation efforts and to make sure that the early response mechanism becomes operational."

But there is much more. "we are partners for democracy and rule of law. Since 2007, more than 40 EU election observation missions were deployed in Africa, often very closely coordinated with observers from the African Union and regional and economic communities. We work together to see how to ensure that the principles of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance are observed.", Mogherini stressed

She also said: "we are partners for Human Rights. Both the African Union and the European Union have designated this year - 2016 - as a Year of Human Rights" and " we are partners in multilateralism, on the global scene. We share the approach of multilateralism in all of all the global arenas where we commonly work". One example is climate change and development. " The UN adopted in September the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, then COP 21 agreed on a historical climate change agreement in December and the WTO Ministerial on the Doha Development Agenda took place in Nairobi again in December.", she said.

"Our partnership is much more than an institutional, political or even economic relationship our citizens and if you ask me which is the strength, which is the power of Africa, some might say the resources, some might say the other things, I say the people and this is also our human capital in Europe that it is our strength", she stressed.

Links

Joint Communiqué between the African Union Commission and the European Commission at their 8th College to College Meeting

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-1301_en.htm