Africa
Development, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, 2012, pp. 15 – 23
© Council for the Development of Social Science
Research in Africa, 2012
(ISSN 0850-3907)
Critical
Reflections on the Joint Africa-EU Strategy
Maria Ölund*
Abstract
The Joint
Africa-EU Strategy (JAES), adopted at the EU-Africa Lisbon Summit in 2007, is a
vision for a long-term relationship between Africa and Europe in which the two
should come together in a shared framework for stronger collaboration. I will
here critically reflect on the JAES based on developments up to the recent
high-level Africa Europe meeting which took place in Tripoli in December 2010.
The developments are well documented and debated both on an official level and
by the NGO community. The article is based on a literature review.
The findings point at some positive
developments, but also on many and difficult challenges met. The historical
heritage is very difficult to overcome, but is also a starting point for better
and more equal relationships in the future. Very little seems to have been done
to meet the new challenges from new actors on the scene and the increased
strength of many African countries due to rawmaterial shortages in the rest of
the world and improved economic developments. However, success in implementing
the JEAS will, in the final analysis, depend on how well the strategy will be
owned by the countries and peoples of Africa and Europe.
Résumé
La Stratégie conjointe Afrique-UE –
The Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) –
adoptée au Sommet UE-Afrique de Lisbonne en 2007, est une vision pour une
relation à long-terme entre l’Afrique et l’Europe dans laquelle, les deux
continents doivent se retrouver dans un cadre partagé pour une collaboration
plus forte. Dans cette article, nous réfléchissons de manière critique sur la
JAES l’évolution de la Stratégie jusqu’à la récente réunion de haut niveau
Afrique-Europe qui s’est tenue à Tripoli en décembre 2010. Cet évolution est
bien documentée à la fois au niveau officiel et par la communauté des ONG. Ce
papier est basé sur une revue de littérature.
* School of
Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Email: mariaolund@gu.se
16
Les conclusions montrent certains
développements positifs, mais aussi de nombreux et difficiles défis relevés.
L’héritage historique est difficile à vaincre, mais il est également un point
de départ pour des relations meilleures et plus égalitaires à l’avenir. Très
peu semble avoir été fait pour relever les nouveaux défis de la part des
nouveaux acteurs en scène et pour la puissance accrue des pays africains du
fait de la pénurie en matières premières dans le reste du monde et de
meilleures évolutions économiques. Cependant, la réussite dans la mise en œuvre
de la JEAS dépendra, en dernière analyse, du succés de l’appropriée de la
stratégie par les pays et les peuples d’Afrique et d’Europe.
Background to the JEAS
The relationship between Europe and
Africa has a long and complex history where the colonial past still has a great
influence. History as well as the geographical proximity between the two
continents has created close trade and aid relationships and a tight
interdependence on issues such as security and migration. Europe has for long
dominated this relationship, labelled ‘partnership’ in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy from
2007. However, a historically unfair relationship, in which one side has taken
advantage of its superior position and exploited the weaker, does not change
overnight. EU is still acting as the ‘big
brother’ towards Africa and the
African Union (AU); also, as the stronger economic power, Europe has for long
set the rules in trade and agricultural policy to mention just two areas. This
being said, the relationship is not static and it is today increasingly
influenced by shifting international power dynamics. By examining the potential
impacts of EU policy on Africa, the factual characteristics of the EU-Africa
relationship can be revealed and compared to other emerging players on the
African arena, such as China, India and Brazil. The new dynamics between
western and non-western actors opens up for increased negotiation power for
African states which influences the implementation of EU strategies for Africa.
The predecessor to the Joint Africa-EU
strategy from 2007 (JAES) was The EU strategy for Africa from 2005. This
strategy aimed to improve EUs relationship with Africa and was supposed to be
governed by the principles of equality, ownership and partnership. However,
directly after the launching in 2005, the strategy was heavily criticised for a
lack of African ownership and involvement of Africa in the creation of the
strategy. Strong voices from NGOs in Europe as well as Africa condemned the
double standard of claiming mutual ownership and partnership as the basis of
the strategy, while at the same time not involving the partner in focus in the
construction of the strategy. After a long discussion and major consultations,
both EU and AU jointly started to prepare a new strategy that would adjust the
deficiency of the earlier one. With this criticism in mind, the ownership and
partnership of the 2007 strategy needs to be closely analysed. An unequal
relationship cannot change into an equal partnership when the prerequisites
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making one side gravely disadvantaged to the other
prevails. In that case, all the words about partnership are likely to remain
mainly rhetoric. What then is the JAES strategy all about?
Objectives and Priorities of the JEAS
The JAES is a vision for a long-term relationship between
Africa and Europe in which the two should come together in a shared framework
for stronger collaboration. The partner on the European side is the EU and on
the African side, the African Union (AU), created in 2002 as an
intergovernmental body with 53 members. Regional actors in Africa are also
involved in the strategy.1 The stated aim of the strategy is as
follows:
The purpose of this Joint
Strategy is to take the Africa-EU relationship to a new, strategic level with a
strengthened political partnership and enhanced cooperation at all levels. …
This partnership should strive to bridge the development divide between Africa
and Europe through the strengthening of economic cooperation and the promotion
of sustainable development in both continents, living side by side in peace,
security, prosperity, solidarity and human dignity.2 The
four main objectives of the JAES are to:
• Improve
the Africa-EU political partnership;
• Promote
peace, security, democratic governance and human rights, basic freedoms, gender
equality, sustainable economic development, including industrialisation, regional
and continental integration, and ensure that all the Millennium Development
Goals are met in all African countries by 2015;
• Promote
effective multilateralism;
• Enhance
a people-centred partnership, which should involve nonstate actors.3
To meet these objectives the strategy aimed to guide the
implementation of the following ‘strategic
priorities’:
1. Peace
and security: Promoting a safer world, e.g., through strengthening the AU´s
role in conflict prevention, management, resolution and peace building. AU and
EU should also cooperate on trans-national security challenges such as
international terrorism and organised crime. 4
2. Governance
and human rights: Upholding our values and principles. Focuson the promotion of
democratic governance and human rights. Weaknesses
… should be addressed in a dialogue’.5
3. Trade
and regional integration: Raising potential and using opportunities. That is,
improving the climate for investments, developing domes-
18
tic and regional markets, promoting private sector
investments supported by foreign investments, improving South-South and
North-South trade relations, making trade rules more coherent and harmonised.
In addition, the strategy aimed at reducing
‘trade distorting’ subsidies and working at promote
African goods on the international market. It specifically mentioned that the
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) should be supportive of Africa´s
regional and continental integration. The EPAs should assist African nations to
live up to EU norms and productivity. While the JAES views these bilateral
agreements as ‘development-oriented
trading relationships’, the strategy
did not fail to include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the
agreement.6
4. Key
development issues: Accelerating the progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), including a firmer stated commitment to the
percentage of GNI. The Paris Agenda should guide this work and in addition to
reducing conditionalities.7
The goal of the strategy is long-term, but to facilitate its
implementation, short-term action plans are developed to specify what should be
done inbetween summits. The first plan covers 2008 and 2010. Yearly progress
reports are also conducted by the European Commission and the Secretariat of
the Council and the African Union Commission. The operational plan is based on
eight partnerships approved by both partners. These are:
• Peace
and security;
• Democratic
governance and human rights;
• Trade,
regional integration and infrastructure;
• The
Millennium Development Goals;
• Energy;
• Climate
change;
• Migration,
mobility and employment;
• Science,
information society and space.8
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
What then are the strengths,
challenges and weaknesses of the JAES strategy, and what are the prospects for
revitalising it? Even if the partnership can be questioned on several grounds,
one of its positive aspects is that it has emphasised that the donor-recipient
relationships should be renewed and Africa should not be looked upon only as a
development concern. Another positive aspect is that EU and AU now have
structures for dialogue and both partners have permanent representations in
Brussels and Addis Ababa. This shows good prospects for improved cooperation;
and even if it is only one small step, it has symbolic importance on a
political level. In addition, a
19
greater commitment to make the JAES work can improve a
mutual understanding through ‘day-to-day’ dialogue.9 In the
strategy, one section also highlights the need to ‘promote more accurate images
of each other, and fight stereotypes, xenophobia and racism, through enhanced
exchanges and contacts of non-state actors, including trade unions,
professional associations, the private sector, media, schools, universities,
research and cultural institutions…’10 Whether and how
this will be implemented remains to be examined. However, this kind of exchange
could create foundations for better understanding and genuine respect between
the two continents in the long run. Although, if instead African states perceive this proposal as an attempt only to
conceal other interests, the vital respect for the partnership will be
undermined.
At the same time roles are changing and
Africa is partly in a stronger position today, as Europe is facing competition
on the African continent from emerging powers such as China and India. This
could push Europe to treat Africa with greater respect in order to win the
trust of African partners over other actors. The partly emerging new choices
for Africa contain both strengths and challenges. European partners fear that
hard-won battles for human rights and democracy can be lost in the relationship
with new actors. Europe can also be pushed to create attractive deals compared
to competing actors, which can be of benefit to African partners. On the other
hand, there is no guarantee that relationships between old or new partners
truly benefit the poor people in a country. One also needs to remember the
diversity of governments that exists under the umbrella of the AU, where some
have become increasingly autocratic compared to others and different motives
exist for forging their external relations. According to reviews of JAES, one
area that has improved collaboration is security partnerships, where the
partners have shared interests, such as combating international terrorism,
conflict and instability.
Several reports establish that one of
the major challenges of the JAES is that the EU is still using strong pressure
in order to enforce some agreements to take place, just as was the case in the
EU-Africa trade (EPAs) negotiations, rather than creating a dialogue. This has
been strongly criticised by the civil society in both Europe and Africa, since
it can have negative impacts on the development process of the African,
Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. (ACP).11 The debate about
EPAs has been intense and created a division between EU members. The United
Kingdom’s Departments for Trade and Industry and International Development was
among the critics of EPAs, saying: ‘The European Commission clearly wants to
use EPAs as a tool to open markets and further its own interests. This is not
good. EPAs in their current form would be detrimental to development. They are
free trade
20
agreements by any other name and are currently designed to
get the most for Europe without the necessary considerations of the negative
effects on weaker developing country partners.’12 Another
critique against the EPAs is that it undermines inter-regional integration
which is one of the objectives of the Joint Strategy from 2007. Different EPAs
are set up with different regional bodies instead of trying to harmonise these
regional differences. In this way regional trade, integration and
infrastructure is promoted instead of greater integration and coherence.13
Commentators such as Kamidza claim that this regional fragmentation can be
compared with the Berlin Conference where Africa was divided into ‘small but
controllable states solely for the benefit of Europe’.14
This parallel is used to describe the new scramble for Africa in which EU is
one of the actors. The negotiation of separate agreements has reduced the ACP
countries’ ‘collective bargaining
power’ and even weakened existing
regional economic arrangements. To dissolve the power of the counterpart is a
strategy that has been used for long for domination. Some critics argue that
this ongoing process is equivalent to a repartitioning and recolonising Africa.15
AU and EU: Different Roles
As with the EPAs, conflicting internal views on issues
exist both within EU and the AU which complicates the implementation of a joint
strategy.16 Another challenge is how to combine ownership
that needs to be in place for a sustainable development with the
conditionalities imposed on the weaker partner. Extensive critique has been
raised about the gap between the agreed intentions and what the partnership
strategy has actually managed to deliver. Global trends such as new emerging
powers and the impact of the economic crisis has been two aspects affecting
European commitment to funding the implementation of the partnerships. Another
weakness that has influenced the implementation of the ambitious strategy is
the slow and young process of the continental integration through the AU,
coupled with the administrative complex institution of the EU. According to
Oladiran Bello, a Nigerian researcher at FRIDE – the European Think Tank for
Global Action – Europe does not sufficiently take into account that the role of
the AU differs from that of the EU as the AU does not control the agendas of
its member states and regional bodies.17 He further
highlights that the pan-African agendas are still at an early stage, which
implies that the JAES is not well known outside the higher political circles.
He claims this cast doubts upon Africa’s readiness and maturity for an ‘equal inter-continental exchange’ as the one proposed in JAES. His
standpoint is that the asymmetry of capacity between the two partners is too
large and that JAES therefore is ‘ahead
of its time.18 How to follow up the JAES, in line with the
result-oriented approach the parties
2. Olünd.pmd
21
have committed themselves to, is another dilemma. In
addition, the unclear role of JAES in relation to other treaties limits
coherence in EU policies towards Africa and creates competing agendas and
channels.
What´s in the Bargain?
Without a broader engagement and commitment to the
strategy from intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental actors, such
as the civil society and the private sector in both Europe and Africa, the
strategy will not have sufficient support base and its politics will therefore
be hard to legitimise. To revitalise the strategy, sufficient political will on
both sides and appropriate funding from the EU members needs to be in place to
enable implementation of the strategy.19 The dialogue is
seen as the central operational method in the partnership, but there are many
deficits that threaten these dialogues. If meetings are too seldom and always
overloaded with the most pressing issues, such as conflicts, other matters will
not be given sufficient space. The recent Africa Europe meeting in Tripoli held
in December 2010 is a case in point. There is also a tendency to handle some
issues outside the JAES framework which further undermines the strategy.20
One important critique of the relevance of the strategy is that the motives seem
unclear. This can cause confusion on both sides and lead to lack of trust and a
weak partnership. Africa needs to know what is in the bargain to be able to
compare this relationship with other potential partners on the global arena.21
With the Asian partners, African nations can more clearly see what should be
the give-and-take in the relationship, e.g., natural resources such as oil.
This motive that Europe partly shares with Asian actors is a sensitive question
for Europe on the basis of its colonial exploitative power in Africa. At the
same time underlying intentions needs to be discussed more openly for Africa to
believe in the relationship and see the relevance and potential gains on their
side. As the EU fails to fulfil its commitments in terms of funding
implemen-tations of the different partnerships agreed upon in the action
programmes following the JAES, Africa might not find it beneficial to engage in
the strategy. If there is too much homework to be done in the form of
conditionalities to receive support, countries that want ‘quick fixes’ such as
infrastructure investments and revenues from natural resources can be more
willing to enter into deals with other actors. On the other hand, many African
leaders do see the importance of cooperating with Europe on broader development
issues. Hence, as a way forward, Europe needs to be clearer on what ‘added value’ the JAES has that other actors do not offer. To analyse why the
incentives on both sides are low for engagements in the JAES process, both
parties are recommended to make assessments and ‘indepth reflections’ on
why this is happening and what they think needs to be done to revitalise the
strategy and partnership.22
2. Olünd.pmd
22
Underlying Motives?
One reason for AU to be sceptical about the JAES strategy
is that it avoids a thorough discussion on interests, motives and sensitive
political issues where conflicts exist, such as the EPAs, climate change and
migration. These issues need to be handled in some way or another for a genuine
partnership to evolve. On the other hand, one major challenge related to this
is that views differ a lot within Africa as well as within Europe when it comes
to some of the most sensitive issues, leading to compromises and therefore a
risk of dissatisfaction from both sides and the enhanced use of parallel
channels. Europe and Africa do need each other and even if the policy can be
criticised on several grounds it is a step ahead from ‘donorship’ to
partnership, but it also contains so much to be addressed without sufficient
capacity or funding to do so. The issues to be addressed take time but the
pressure to gain support by showing quick results can push for rushed
unsustainable solutions. Another fear refers to the British comment on the
EPAs: Is this how Europe tries to get the most out of Africa along other
scramblers? If that is partly the case, this scrambling ‘with a human face’ is
more hideous than the scramblers who are more frank with what they are up to.
It is of relevance for Africa to know the intentions behind the strategy.
Diverse Voices and Weak Ownership
Finally the JAES have to be further surveyed regarding one
of its main objectives: to be people-centric. With awareness of the lack of
democracy in many African countries, the representatives active in the JAES
have varying degree of legitimacy and many are likely to speak for the interest
of few rather for the interest of the broader masses. Another challenge is
related to the diversity of development challenges the African continent faces
today, which makes it hard for Africa to speak with one voice. (This is true
also for EU with vast diversity and internal challenges.) On the other hand,
with improved intercontinental commitment, Africa can become a stronger voice
that can start to put demands on its partners in the global arena. This would
be an achievement that could lead to more equal partnerships.
Notes
1. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer In: Odén and Wohlgemuth, ed., 2009, p.82
2. The Joint
Africa-EU Strategy, 2007, p.2
3. Africa – EU
strategic partnership official site:
http://www.africa-eupartnership.org/partnerships/partnership_en.htm
4. The Joint
Africa-EU Strategy, 2007, p.4-7
5. Ibid. p.7-9
6. Ibid. 9-11
23
7. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer In: Odén and Wohlgemuth, ed., 2009, p. 83
8http://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/partnerships/partnership_en.htm
9. Jean
Bossuyt and Andrew Sherriff, 2010, What’s
Next for the Joint Africa-EU Strategy? Perspectives on Revitalising and Innovative Framework, p.5
10. The Joint
Africa-EU Strategy, 2007, p.19
11. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer, in Odén and Wohlgemuth, eds., 2009, p.84
12. Lee,
Margaret, in Southall and Melber, eds, 2009, p.91.
13. Oladiran W.
Bello, 2010, A Crucial Moment in
EU-Africa Relations, p.3
14. Lee,
Margaret, in Southall and Melber, eds., 2009, p.92-93
15. Melber,
Henning, 2010, China in Africa: Any Impact on Development andAid? p.221
16. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer, in Odén and Wohlgemuth, eds., 2009, p.85
17. Oladiran W.
Bello, 2010, p.4
18. Ibid p.5
19. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer, in Odén and Wohlgemuth, eds., 2009, p.90
20. Wohlgemuth
and Wallnöfer, in Odén and Wohlgemuth, eds., 2009, p.6
21. Oladiran W.
Bello 2010, p.2
22. Jean
Bossuyt and Andrew Sherriff, 2010, p.8
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