The EU-South Africa Joint Cooperation Council (JCC) met in Brussels at the level of senior officials on 23 July to take stock of progress made in the last year implementing the TDCA and discuss future plans.
This was the tenth meeting of the JCC since the signature in 1999 of the Trade, Cooperation and Development Agreement (TDCA), the bilateral agreement between South Africa and the EU that provides the overall legal basis for EU-South Africa relations. The main purpose of the meeting was to take stock of progress made in the last year in implementing the TDCA and discuss the way forward on the wide range of areas where policy dialogues and cooperation have been established in the context of the EU-South Africa Strategic Partnership.
During the plenary session of the JCC, senior officials took note of progress made in well established areas of cooperation: The Development partnership will be enhanced with a focus on the education sector, one of the priorities of the new South African government, with combined programmes by the European Commission in this sector amounting to €127 million in 2009. Senior officials also explored the possibilities for future cooperation with South Africa’s new Development Partnership Agency. Science and technology represents another highly relevant area, with South Africa being one of the most successful third country partners worldwide within the EU Framework Research Programme. Under the 7th Framework Research Programme alone, €13 million have so far been awarded through competitive calls for proposals to South African partners. The JCC underlined the overall importance attached to climate change and intensified its policy dialogue in this area in the run-up to the EU-South Africa Summit and the forthcoming UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. Interest was expressed in a dedicated climate change programme in the context of EU development assistance. It was agreed to hold a climate change workshop in South Africa. In the area of Trade, progress has been made in the Additional Protocol to the TDCA. The Additional Protocol was implemented on 20 February 2009, thus enabling the TDCA preferences to be extended to Bulgaria and Romania. With respect to the Cheese Agreement, the processes in South Africa towards signature and implementation of the Agreement are at an advanced stage. In the context of the SADC EPA negotiations, the parties have agreed to intensify engagements in an effort to resolve the outstanding negotiation issues.
Furthermore, senior officials assessed the state of play in recently established areas of cooperation: A first meeting of the Migration Dialogue Forum established in 2008 was conducted on 22 July, addressing issues such as the fair treatment of foreign nationals, integration policies and measures against xenophobia; aspects of mutual interest related to visa; brain drain and illegal immigration. Space was confirmed as another new area of cooperation with great potential, in particular regarding ongoing work towards the extension of the EGNOS global navigation satellite system in the Southern African region. The parties confirmed the significant potential for mutually beneficial cooperation in the area of Aviation. They have recognised the urgency of addressing the legal uncertainty of existing bilateral Air Services Agreements between South Africa and EU Member States.
To this end, South Africa is well advanced in the process of launching an assessment of a horizontal agreement with the EU. The JCC also welcomed good progress in developing concrete cooperation projects and exchanges of experience in the areas of Statistics and Customs. It discussed ways to advance policy dialogues in the fields of Energy and ICT, as well as the prospects for broadening the cooperation to other areas like Education and Training, Employment and Social Affairs and Crime and Justice. Both sides agreed to pursue collaboration on policy dialogue on global Health, joint tasks teams and best practice on recruitment of health professionals.
In light of these discussions, the senior officials encouraged their services to continue cooperation and reinforce existing dialogues in all areas of common interest. Overall, the wide spectrum of issues addressed and the high quality of the discussions underlined the scope and the potential of cooperation between South Africa and the EU.
The second EU-South Africa Summit will be held in Kleinmond, South Africa, on 11 September 2009. The next JCC is to take place in 2010 in South Africa.
