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European and African leaders will meet at a summit in Lisbon in early December for the first time in seven years. Will their differences of opinion prevail or will the two continents manage to find common ground?

The European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) have a lot of problems to sort out with each other, which is why they are meeting on 8 and 9 December at an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. This is the first summit between Africa and the EU since the year 2000. A meeting planned for 2003 was cancelled because of the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, who had been banned from entering the EU because of his disregard for human rights and was therefore not invited to the summit. This prompted most of Africa's leading politicians to boycott the meeting as well. In 2007 both sides are determined that the summit take place – even with Mugabe.

African immigrants look out from the German Cap Anamur aid ship in the Harbour of Porto Empedocle, Italy.
Photo: AP

The Mugabe Dispute

Nonetheless, in the run-up to the summit Mugabe's attendance has been a major source of controversy. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he would not attend if Mugabe came. At a meeting of German President Horst Köhler's "Partnership for Africa" initiative, held in Eltville in late October 2007, the Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua said the dispute over Mugabe should not be allowed to prevent the EU and Africa from talking about all the other important issues, but at the same time admitted: "What is happening in Zimbabwe is unlawful." German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), who is determined to attend the summit, argues along the same lines. In her opinion Mugabe should be criticised face-to-face for his politics. So far no other European head of state has joined the British boycott.

Commenting on Brown's decision on 21 September 2007, Horst Bacia of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "This is a way out of the dilemma for [Brown] - but not for everyone." And on the same day in the British newspaper The Independent Dominic Lawson scoffed: "I would imagine that Robert Mugabe would be delighted if his presence in Lisbon turns out to be the cause of Britain's absence from the table; and if Portugal should rescind its invitation, does anyone seriously imagine that this would ... accelerate by one second the ending of Mugabe's rule?"

Portugal's EU presidency faces a difficult task because it has made relations with Africa a priority, the Portuguese daily Diário de Notícias commented on 3 July 2007: "It is out of the question that Robert Mugabe use the summit to bring his country out of its deserved isolation. If we succeed in preventing this from coming to pass, Portugal will have done Europe and Africa a real favour."

Competition from China

Raenette Taljaard noted disapprovingly on 13 November 2007 in the South African newspaper The Times that while Germany was trying to ensure that Zimbabwe didn't dominate the summit the EU was actually only allowing the dictator leeway because it was concerned that China was taking over its former colonial turf.

In doing so she named one of the key reasons why Europe's interest in the African continent has grown over the past few years: namely China's involvement in Africa and in particular in the exploitation of its mineral resources. In an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 10 September 2007 Nicolas Busse noted that "the fundamental question of how much longer Europe can afford to focus on moral issues" was increasingly becoming primary. At its summit meetings with African heads of state China has already provided a clear answer to this question, always receiving Mugabe with great honours.

The Summit's Agenda

The 2007 EU-Africa summit is about whether the two continents can now forge a new "strategic partnership." In the draft final declaration they have drawn up jointly for the summit, the EU and the AU name four fields of cooperation: peace and security, trade, migration and human rights, and development issues. At least another dozen topics also feature on the agenda – from the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, which include halving poverty in Africa by 2015, to the desire to promote "more accurate images of each other."

On some of these points, China, the big new player on the African continent, is an invisible presence at the negotiating table, for example when it comes to the EU's promises to be more reliable in its aid payments and provide more budgetary aid without expecting too much from Africa in return. Unlike the EU, China doesn't ask questions about "good government" or "human rights" but is primarily interested in Africa as an economic area. This is why China is a welcome investor and lender on the African continent.

Trade Policy as a Bone of Contention

One of the major sticking points between the EU and Africa is trade policy. The aforementioned declaration stipulates that Africa should "become less dependent on the export of raw materials and simple processed products." But at almost the same time as the EU-Africa summit takes place, the negotiations for the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the ACP states (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) are to draw to an end. These negotiations are aimed at replacing the Cotonou Agreement that until now guaranteed these states duty-free access to the European market while at the same time allowing them to protect their own markets against cheap imports. This is to change with the new partnership agreements, because according to EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson the old agreements don't comply with World Trade Organisation (WTO) regulations.

This topic has generated intense debate among experts, and the French newspaper Libération has published several articles dealing with the subject. In an open letter Mandelson wrote with EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel and which was published in several European newspapers, he threatened that starting 1 January 2008 the ACP countries would have to pay customs duty if a consensus on the new agreements wasn't reached by that time.

He defended the partnership agreements against critics, including the Swiss Jean Ziegler, the UN's Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, who had described the agreement as "catastrophic" for the Africans in the 16 October 2007 issue of Libération. Mandelson's exact words in the letter were: "No one believes the status quo is working. Africa's dependence on trade preferences and a few basic commodities has seen it fall far behind the poverty reduction and economic growth of Asia and Latin America." He added that "[Africans] know their interests and they have negotiated hard."

But it is precisely this point which is disputed by the African side. According to participants attending the "Partnership for Africa" meeting, one of the five African leaders there put it in a nutshell saying: "We need more time. We don't know what's good for us. We don't know how to negotiate this."

The AfricaRecruit organisation, which is financed by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the Commonwealth Economic Committee, argued along similar lines in the publication African Voices published by Bond, a non-governmental organisation. It asserted that "most African countries lack the means to negotiate trade matters effectively." The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) points out that "reciprocity between rich and poor countries automatically leads to negative consequences for poor nations." This is an allusion to the fact that with the EPAs, not only the duties levied by European states but, after a transition period of 10 years, also those levied by ACP states are to be lifted.

Migration

Another important topic at the summit is migration. Europe wants to take joint action with the countries of Africa to prevent illegal refugees from making the dangerous journey across the sea to Europe. The document drawn up for the summit states that migration and mobility should be "treated as largely positive phenomena."

In concrete terms, however, the main goal is that African countries take back the illegal immigrants who have managed to enter Europe. At the same time, the EU promises to combat stereotypes and xenophobia and promote "exchanges and contacts of non-state actors."

But according to critics it's unlikely there will by any changes for African refugees. In an article for the German paper Tageszeitung of 12 November 2007 Navid Kermani commented bitterly: "Refugee protection no longer refers to protection for refugees, but to protection from refugees."

The Mauretanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako pointed out on 18 October 2006 in the French newspaper L'Humanité that the EU's barriers would never suffice, because "anyone who has enough to eat does not leave like that, simply because some lights are twinkling somewhere in the distance."

Friendship or War?

In the Hungarian newspaper Elet es Irodalom of 14 August 2006, Aminata Traoré, former Minister for Culture and Tourism in Mali, took the debate in a new direction: "African immigrants are not enemies of Europe. On the contrary: they believe in Europe."

But Owen Mukamana from Nairobi disagrees with this positive assessment of relations between the two continents. In an article published on "AllAfrica.com" on 13 September 2007 he wrote: "It is in the interest of the EU that Africa must never develop. ... Africa has been drawn into an economic war with Europe. It has no choice but to protect itself."

Dagmar Dehmer

Dagmar Dehmer has been Political Editor for the Berliner Tagesspiegel since 2001. Her main topics are climate protection, the environment and Africa.
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