Europe’s pivot to Africa

Where do we stand now in building a “strategic partnership” between the European and African continent?

Faten Aggad
Mark Leonard
Mark Malloch Brown
Theodore Murphy

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Almost a year ago, when EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made her first business trip outside the EU, she chose the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa as her destination and took quite a stand. This year was supposed to be a “decisive year” in African-European relations: The German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development talked at the beginning of 2020 about a “treaty of the century” which should have been sealed at the AU-EU Summit. However, with the pandemic ongoing, the Summit was postponed, and priorities shifted. Where do we stand now in building a “strategic partnership” between the European and African continent? And can we actually consider it a “strategic” one? What impact has the competition between the US and China on these relations?

In this week’s episode, host Mark Leonard is joined by Faten Aggad, Senior Advisor to the AU High Representative on AU-EU negotiations, Mark Malloch Brown, former deputy secretary‐general of the UN under Kofi Annan and minister of state in the UK foreign office, and ECFR Africa programme director Theodore Murphy to discuss challenges and possible opportunities of the AU-EU relationship.

This podcast was recorded on 9 November 2020.

Further reading:

“Trump, Biden, and Europe’s place in the Africa great power competition” by Theodore Murphy

Bookshelf:

Cover image:
Ursula von der Leyen, Moussa Faki
Image by European Union, 2020
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