Sustainable Futures

Schlagwort: Africa-EU

  • The war in Ukraine: financial, political and credibility challenges for EU-Africa cooperation on peace and security

    Photo: Flags of African Union and European Union on the Paul Kagame AU-EU Summit | Brussels, 18 February 2022

    On 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine. The invasion prompted a strong reaction from the EU in a manner and speed that few had anticipated. Just a week prior, the EU summit with the African Union convened 40 African heads of state and government and 27 of their European colleagues. As the global setting for EU security policy has dramatically changed within a few weeks, the war in Ukraine will also have important implications for EU-Africa cooperation on peace and security.

    Former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb remarked on social media that he had “never seen the EU acting with more determination, speed and unity.” In a similar fashion, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Borrell called the EU’s response to the war the ‘geopolitical awakening of the EU’, while Commission President von der Leyen described it as a ‘watershed moment’ in the history of the Union.

    Within the span of twenty days, we have indeed witnessed EU unity and action, covering the full range from expressions of solidarity to strong sanctions. The actions taken also involved leaving behind old taboos: the Union decided to use the European Peace Facility (EPF) to procure and distribute lethal military equipment to Ukraine. This is the first time ever the EU provides weapons to another country, with a first €500 million agreed on 28 February and EU foreign ministers reaching political agreement to an additional EPF contribution of the same size during their meeting on 21 March.

    Ramifications beyond Ukraine

    Significant questions remain both on if and how the AU and EU may jointly respond to the conflict, and how their cooperation on peace and security will be affected – both intentionally and unintentionally – by the war in Ukraine.

    Supporting peace and security in Africa has been a key priority of the EU’s foreign and security policy since the first Africa-EU summit in 2000. The EU has currently deployed eleven military operations and civilian missions under the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) to African conflict contexts. These include two maritime operations at the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean, four military training missions deployed in Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Mozambique, and five civilian missions in Libya, Central African Republic, Somalia, Mali and Niger. Recent months have shown some tensions between the EU’s engagement and the involvement of Russian private military corporation Wagner as requested by some of these states.

    European funding for African security efforts

    In addition to its own military and civilian missions, the EU has made important and predominantly financial contributions to the long-term strengthening of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Under the motto „African solutions to African problems,“ the EU has since 2004 provided nearly €3 billion under the African Peace Facility (APF) for AU-mandated African peace support operations, capacity building of APSA structures, and short-term crisis prevention and peace mediation. A substantial portion of the APF funds were dedicated to the African Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM in Somalia.

    On 21 March 2021, around a year ago, EU foreign ministers agreed to create a European Peace Facility that replaced the APF. This was part of a larger reform in the EU’s legal basis for the financing of its external action, specifically the integration of the European Development Fund through which the APF was funded into the EU’s general budget. By remaining outside the EU’s budget as an intergovernmental fund, the EPF can finance assistance measures to support the military aspects of peace support operations led by a regional or international organisation. In addition, the EPF can also fund the provision of lethal military equipment to partner countries’ armed forces, which was not possible through the APF. To pursue these objectives, the EPF was equipped with a financial ceiling of €5.692 billion in current prices (€5 billion in 2018 prices) for the period 2021-2027, with an annual ceiling that increases from €420 million in 2021 to €1.132 billion in 2027. While the EPF will also provide financial support to peace operations in Africa in the same way the APF has, it does not require an AU mandate to do so. Moreover, the ‘demand-driven’ nature of the EPF means that no funds are earmarked or otherwise reserved for countries or regions, including Africa.

    An ambitious agenda for EU-Africa cooperation

    In view of this track record, the February summit in Brussels provided the first occasion for a political ‚continent-to-continent‘ dialogue on peace and security since the previous Abidjan Summit of December 2017. The resulting outcome document did not include very specific statements on next steps, but confirmed key thematic areas for future cooperation. These commitments include the strengthening of cooperation in the area of military capacity building and the provision of training and equipment, the continued support of African-led peace support operations and a stronger integration with EU military and civilian missions as well as enhanced cooperation on cybersecurity. The text also includes a general commitment to intensify cooperation in the field of civilian crisis prevention, but overall there is clear focus on intensifying military-related domains of cooperation.

    The invasion of Ukraine: three implications for EU-Africa relations

    The war in Ukraine already challenges the realisation of the peace and security agenda agreed at the AU-EU summit, with the EU facing its financial implications for the EPF, the political implications for the EU member states, and the credibility related to the design and added value of the EPF.

    Financial implications. With an annual ceiling of €540 million for 2022, the two assistance measures for Ukraine adopted on 28 February worth €500 million already account for 90 percent of the planned budget for 2022. On 21 March, foreign affairs ministers reached a political agreement on an additional €500 million to be mobilised under the EPF, which will necessitate re-negotiations of the EPF annual ceilings. But it will also require member states to have a more strategic discussion about how the assistance to Ukraine affects (planned) EPF engagements in other countries and regions. An open dialogue with the African Union about what the war in Ukraine and the EPF expenses means for the implementation of the priorities agreed at the AU-EU summit is warranted, as well as for the planned and continued EU financial contributions to African peace operations through the EPF.

    Political implications. The immediate focus of European foreign and security policy will be on Eastern Europe. The measures adopted at the EU level to provide military and economic support to Ukraine, the strengthening of NATO’s military presence in the Baltic and Eastern European states, and the bilateral support provided to Ukraine by many European states demonstrate this shift of priorities. It may also lead EU member states to put a stronger focus on tasks of territorial and collective defence, which may decrease their willingness to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions abroad. The EU’s engagement in the Sahel could be seriously affected, as the Ukraine war may make EU-wide debates about how to compensate for the French military withdrawal from Mali even more complex. Again, this may lead to a (partial) winding down of the EU’s military presence in Africa, the implications of which are hard to predict at this point. At least it is clear that the EU will need to seriously engage with its African partners to ensure that any decisions on withdrawals or adjustments are well coordinated with them.

    Credibility challenges. The use of the European Peace Facility in Ukraine to provide lethal equipment to a country facing a full-scale military invasion by another country along the EU’s external borders is a dramatically new situation. Assistance measures were primarily intended to support military capacity building and train and equip efforts of the EU in partner countries that face armed conflict within their territory and that need long-term support in strengthening their security forces.

    Given the urgency of the situation in Ukraine, it is hard to imagine that the EU could follow its integrated methodological framework for EPF assistance measures. As per this framework, the EU would be required to conduct rigorous conflict risk analyses and impact assessments for the first-ever provision of lethal equipment to a third country. Their relevance notwithstanding, the EU officials who negotiated the legal basis of the EPF may not have anticipated the use of the instrument in an ongoing war where monitoring and evaluating the measures would however be close to impossible. The current situation in Ukraine indeed makes it impossible for the EU to send in personnel to monitor how the equipment was used and if compliance rules have been followed. In view of the exceptional nature of the situation under which the assistance measures for Ukraine were adopted, the EU should ensure that the decisions made are well-communicated, well-understood and accepted by its African partners.

    The need for dialogue

    Communicating the exceptional nature of this war along the EU’s borders – and the pressure it puts on its new European Peace Facility – should be the starting point of the AU-EU dialogue on peace and security, as opposed to an impediment to it. Many African states chose not to support the recent UN General Assembly resolution on Ukraine, which shows that this dialogue will not always be easy. Yet, it is also a crucial case where both continents are challenged to show that their commitment to international cooperation goes beyond the words expressed in their summit document. To this end, the EU needs to engage in serious and open dialogue with African partners on the possible implications of the Ukraine war for EU-Africa cooperation and to identify possible areas for cooperation and a joint response.

  • UN General Assembly voting on Ukraine – What does it tell us about African states’ relations with external partners?

    Photo: Logo of the UN on blue ground
    Picture by Chickenonline on Pixabay

    On 2 March 2022, the UN General Assembly voted in a special emergency session on a resolution condemning the Russian attack on Ukraine. The General Assembly dealt with the issue on the basis of a referral from the Security Council, which was paralysed by a Russian veto. The resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire and clearly names Russia as the aggressor. (mehr …)

  • The AU-EU Summit: resetting the continent-to-continent partnership

    The AU-EU Summit: resetting the continent-to-continent partnership

    Photo: Flags of the African Union and the European Union next to each other
    © European Union, 2022

    Finally, the AU-EU Summit took place in Brussels on 17-18 February, after several postponements and a good four years since the last summit was held in Abidjan. Against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the summit convened Heads of State of 27 EU Member States and 40 of their African counterparts under the auspices of European Council President Charles Michel and Senegalese President and AU Chair Macky Sall. The summit was intended to bring about a new start of the partnership, originally coined by the EU as a “new alliance”, with the partners finally settling on a “renewed partnership”. The changed global context has meant that this new start took a fundamentally different shape than the “comprehensive strategy with Africa”, which the European Council and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, both identified as political priorities during the pre-pandemic time of 2019.

    Most experts were skeptical about such announcements and expressed their low expectation for this year’s summit. In view of these forecasts and following the earlier postponements, the mere fact of an AU-EU summit actually taking place was considered a success in its own right.

    The partnership between the two regions must be given shape in practice and lives before and after as opposed to during these high-level meetings. Summits should rather be seen as recurrent signposts, as points of evaluation and opportunities to identify new directions and priorities. However, even in this regard, the current record was sobering at times. Strongly divergent positions between European and African representatives with regard to migration, the discussion on intellectual property rights and COVID-19 vaccines, and the allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights feature among the current sources of tension between the partners. The continuing security situation in the Sahel, and especially the breakdown in relations between Mali and France, added to this.

    In view of this overall mixed situation, the recently concluded summit and its final declaration can certainly be seen in a positive light and at least a mixed assessment can be drawn.

    New approaches and concrete deliverables

    As the hosting party of the sixth summit between Europe and Africa, the EU made efforts to innovate both the desired outcome and proceedings of the summit. A break from the past wordy outcome statements, the EU had proposed a lean final declaration that would highlight concrete measures and focuses on investments to be made. There was also a move away from exclusively plenary debates to engaging through parallel thematic roundtables to facilitate an intensive exchange between the African and European heads of state in smaller groups.

    A key figure emerging from the summit is the €150 billion „Africa Investment Package“, which Commission President Von der Leyen announced in Senegal on 10 February. This package is intended to mobilise public and private investment for physical and soft infrastructure as part of the currently much-discussed „Global Gateway“ EU investment programme. Already during the closing press conference, observers doubted the promised investments and the associated leverage effects, not least with reference to previous investment packages whose effects and results have not been adequately monitored and evaluated to date. Keeping this promise will be crucial to refute earlier criticisms that previous AU-EU summits have mainly resulted in unfulfilled promises.

    In addition to concrete (financial) commitments, the summit also serves to define, adapt and possibly adjust the relations between two historically and economically closely linked partners with intense cultural exchanges. In this context, it is particularly important to consider the demand for an equal partnership and to bring about a common understanding of this equality. Such calls were clearly and repeatedly heard both during the opening statements of the summit and in numerous individual statements.

    From fragmentation to strategic focus

    Although there seems to be broad agreement on the notion of equal partnership on both sides of the Mediterranean, it remains a distant aim in practice. One reason for this are the various overlapping frameworks and arrangements that the EU and its member states have established for cooperation with Africa, as a result of history, the EU’s own development and the path dependencies created in the process. Europe’s cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa has been shaped under the post-colonial institutional framework with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, while cooperation with North Africa is mainly carried out on a bilateral basis in the form of separate association agreements.

    Moreover, over the years, the EU has introduced trade agreements with individual and groups of African states, as well as strategic partnerships with larger African states such as Nigeria and South Africa, in addition to various regional strategies. Individual EU member states, including Germany, pursue their own bilateral strategies and initiatives in cooperation with Africa. This fragmented institutional framework is one factor that stands in the way of a coherent European policy towards Africa. The recent summit made it clear that there is a will for renewal. However, declarations of intent alone are not enough to calibrate the foundation of European-African relations. This requires three more fundamental changes to established practices.

    First, one must be aware of the limitations of a partnership between two regional cooperation projects. Unlike powerful nation states that compete with Europe in cooperating with Africa, the EU is not able to provide new funds and initiatives in a short-term and flexible manner, as it is bound by its own financial rules and the long-term budget set by member states and the European Parliament.

    Secondly, the EU should ensure coherence in its numerous engagements in Africa. While calling for an equal partnership, the EU was the main driver between migration and investment-oriented development cooperation initiatives proposed in 2015 and 2016. Although the EU supports Africa’s emerging continental free trade area, it continues to engage in talks with regional groups of states to deepen existing trade agreements. The EU’s erstwhile support for the African Peace Facility has now been transformed into a European Peace Facility that gives African states less direct say.

    Third and last, the EU and Africa should try to be as explicit as possible about the areas in which they want to cooperate. Long lists of commitments and insufficiently specified measures are often a guarantee for unnecessary disappointment. A greater focus on systematically monitoring and reviewing progress made would be a step in the right direction. Such continuous monitoring should be transparent so that the next summit may celebrate the benefits of cooperation, as opposed to calling for another “reset” of the partnership.

  • Knowledge Cooperation between Africa and Europe: The power of engagement and changing perspectives

    Photo: International practicioners of the Managing Global Governance Academy 2018 learning together

    As humanity, we face many common challenges in the 2020s: climate change and its effects are at the core, resulting in demands for economic transformation geared towards more sustainability. Underlying are demographic changes, with the need to feed more people while maintaining the natural basis for our survival. Increased digitalisation, global health issues (this is not the first nor the last pandemic), and strong refugee and migration movements call for a united action to address these shared global challenges. Additionally, geopolitical changes bring new important actors onto the world scene.

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