African Union-European Union Summit 2022: two continents, different priorities

Pierre Firtion deciphers the stakes of the summit.

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2 mins

The sixth summit between the European Union and the African Union is being held in Brussels on 17 and 18 February.

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Five years after the last meeting, what has changed? 

On both sides, we hear that we want to try to renew this relationship.

We hear it especially on the European side.

That's something, it's a vocabulary that we use regularly before each summit, we want to dust off, renew this relationship.

Which means all the same that if we want to renew the thing, it's that we're not very happy with the current situation and that it's not working very well.

On the African side, on the European side, what are the priorities? 

Each continent has its own interests and its own priorities.

We know that the African Union expects from this summit in particular that we help it more in terms of infrastructure, that we help it to access the vaccine against Covid, that we support its private sector.

Europe has other priorities, which are migration issues, security issues or climate issues.

How has the pandemic affected relations between Africa and Europe?

This crisis due to Covid-19, it has somewhat damaged the partnership between Europe and Africa, because Europe has been suspected or it has been a little frowned upon on the African side.

We had the impression that she was not, that she did not show sufficient solidarity.

The vaccine nationalism of European countries has been poorly perceived in Africa.

Will the African Union and the European Union be able to address these annoying subjects, discuss them and perhaps find points of convergence?

This is undoubtedly one of the major challenges of this summit.

Why is this summit important for both regions? 

This meeting is important both for the African Union, but also for the European Union.

For Africa, this is important because Europe remains Africa's number one trading partner and number one donor. 

And then for the European Union, in a fairly tense international context.

In an increasingly polarized world, it is important to have powerful allies.

And Europe would do well to listen to Africa and be very attentive to what Africa is asking for, otherwise its place on the continent will be increasingly challenged by China, as we have seen recently. , but also by Turkey or even more by Russia, we saw it in the Central African Republic and we see it recently in Mali with the arrival of Wagner's mercenaries.

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• African Union

• European Union