A first discussion took place at the Development Committee of the European Parliament on 16 July on the working document on the joint EU-Africa Strategy, which should be the basis for the future report to be adopted by European Parliament on this topic.
Maria Martens, who is the MEP rapporteur on this issue, presented her draft report commenting on the outline adopted by the joint EU-Africa Ministerial Troika on 15 of May and reacted as well on the basis of the EC Communication ‘From Cairo to Lisbon’. She mainly stressed the lack of involvement of Parliaments in the outline, especially the European Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament but also national Parliaments, asking for a strong role for these institutions in the monitoring of the implementation of the Strategy. Besides recalling that one of the main challenges of the joint Strategy was to bring a real added value and change to the EU-Africa relationship, she was also critical of the insufficient consultation process so far. Her presentation was followed by an intervention by Ambassador Mahamet Annadif, who stressed the necessity for the EU to start treating Africa as one continent and supporting African continental integration vision. The negotiators still need to find an agreement on remaining divergences although Ambassador Annadif did not go into details on that issue.
Various MEPs questioned the reasons why the EU and Africa were engaging in such an exercise and what the added value of the future joint Strategy would be. They also emphasised the need to focus on the delivery of commitments already made by the EU, as well as to have a proper monitoring of the Strategy with a strong role for the Parliaments and civil society. Glenys Kinnock stressed the need to translate the principles mentioned in the Strategy into reality, notably the idea of ‘treating as Africa as one’ saying that a concrete way to do so could be to have a pan-African financial envelope (like the ones EU has to support regions).
The European Commission, represented by Philippe Darmuzey, highlighted the need to upgrade the EU-Africa dialogue and institutional architecture. In its Communication ‘From Cairo to Lisbon’, the EC put on the table five partnerships that could become the deliverables of the Lisbon Summit, but this still needs to be discussed with EU Member States and their African partners.
Future discussions on this issue at the EP Development Committee will take place on 10 September. The report should then be adopted by the Development Committee on 3 October and in plenary during the 22-25 October session. At the end of October, this report should also be presented to the Pan African Parliament, which will work on its own report in parallel. A joint Declaration should be adopted by the EP and the PAP before the Lisbon Summit. For the complete calendar, please click here.
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