Africa and the European Union

A Strategic Partnership

J. Mangala

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349443956, 9781137269461
• eBook ISBN: 9781137269478
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Social Sciences

The adoption of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) in 2007 was a watershed moment in Africa-EU relations, one that sought to 'reinvent' a historical relationship to meet the challenges posed by complex interdependencies, expanding globalization, and growing competition, all framed by the gradual dislocation of the West as the epicenter of world politics. Five years into its implementation, this book offers a thorough and first comprehensive investigation of the JAES, the most advanced form of interregionalism seen to date.

Part I

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Setting the Context

Chapter 1

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Africa-EU Strategic Partnership: Significance and Implications

Jack Mangala

The adoption of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its first Action Plan at the Lisbon Summit in December 2007 represented a moment of great historical significance in Africa-EU relations. It set in motion the most advanced and complex form of interregional relations in world politics. The JAES marks the latest development in a rich, dense, troubled, and sometimes surprising relationship between Europe and Africa; a relationship that has evolved from ancient times to be transformed through the vicissitudes and scars of the colonial enterprise, the fight for independence, World War II, the promises and uncertainties of the postcolonial era, regional integration in Europe and the quest for Africa’s unity, the Cold War, expanding globalization, Africa’s growing agency and reforms, and the current reconfiguration of global power, just to name a few of the fundamental dynamics that have been at play in the relationship.

Why the JAES and why now? What is its significance for the future of Africa-EU relations and beyond? What are its implications for interregional and global politics? As the JAES enters into its fifth year, these are the questions this introductory chapter seeks to ponder before outlining the book’s design and structure.

Ratio Legis and Significance

The end of the Cold War opened a new political space which compelled Africa and the EU to seek a restructuration of their continent-to-continent relationship. The 2000 EU-Africa Summit in Cairo was the first attempt to “give a new strategic dimension to the global partnership between Africa and Europe for the Twenty First Century, in a spirit of equality, respect, alliance and cooperation.”¹ However, the framework adopted in Cairo—as discussed in the following chapter—was timid in light of the stated ambition of elevating the relationship to a strategic level and, more importantly, it lacked a credible operational structure. It was soon overtaken by events on the ground, and a conjunction of new dynamics and forces both in Europe and Africa, and in the international system. This changing regional and international context has been captured as follows by the European Commission (EC):

Africa is now at the heart of international politics, but what is genuinely new is that Africa—and the African Union in particular—is emerging, not as a development issue, but as a political actor in its own right. It is becoming increasingly clear that Africa matters—as a political voice, as an economic force and as a huge source of human, cultural, natural and scientific potential. . . . Meanwhile, the EU too has changed—its membership has expanded to 27 States, its role in the world has developed and it has adopted ambitious common policies on security, energy, climate change and innovation. Europeans have recognized that African economic prosperity is essential for European prosperity. . . . The world has changed with the forces of global capital and financial markets, climate change, global media and information and communications technology, trans-national terrorism and organized crime, and global pandemics all making the world smaller by the day. The need for common global responses is therefore more vital than ever before. The EU and Africa are old partners, but in a world transformed.²

The recognition by the EU of Africa’s growing strategic importance—and therefore of the imperative of rethinking its traditional engagement with the continent—is part of a broad reconceptualization process which has seen, in recent years, a shift from humanitarianism—what Gilbert Khadiagala calls “the dynamic of Africa-as-a-problem”³—to a strategic view of Africa. From Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia to Ankara, established and emerging powers have reassessed and (re)formulated their Africa policies to underscore a new level of strategic engagement with the continent. Urging the US government to rethink its policy toward Africa, the Council on Foreign Relations writes, “Americans must pause and reflect on how Africa has become a region of growing vital importance to U.S. national interests. It is outdated and counterproductive to assume that Africa is simply the object of humanitarian concerns or a case for charity.”⁴ This conceptual shift has led to a number of new initiatives—such as the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)—in and formal partnerships with Africa, of which the JAES remains the most ambitious and complex. As stated by Africa and EU leaders at the Lisbon Summit, “we have come together in awareness of the lessons and experiences of the past, but also in the certainty that our future requires an audacious approach, one that allows us to face with confidence the demands of our globalizing world.”⁵

Broadly speaking, the following rationale has accompanied what appears to be more than just a rhetorical exercise by external powers in seeking new engagements with Africa. First, Africa has undergone significant institutional, economic, and political reforms that have, in many respects, diminished the prevailing Afro-pessimism that seemed to characterize the first decade of the post-Cold War era. These reforms have brought a sense of Africa’s growing agency. The establishment of the African Union in 2002 and the home-grown instruments of regional governance—such as the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)—have improved Africa’s institutional capacity and the continent’s bargaining position at the international stage. At the domestic level, a wide range of reforms undertaken by various governments have resulted in an improved economic outlook for the continent. From 2002 to 2008, the annual economic growth in Africa averaged 6 percent. Discussing Africa’s recent economic performance, Jakkie Cilliers et al. note,

There are many critical and interacting transitions underway that help explain for example, the very positive global investment and economic growth trends that preceded the 2008 global recession, as well as the relatively strong performance of the continent during it. In 2009, when the global economy contracted by 0.6 percent, sub-Saharan African economies continued to expand with growth averaging 2.6 percent, rebounding to an expected 5 percent in 2010. The continent’s growing strengths range well beyond its traditional dependence on commodity exports, but it increasingly also reflects improvements in the quality of governance as well as its burgeoning population.⁶

The improved economic and business environment on the continent is marked by increased―but often overlooked―opportunities. In Africa Rising, Vijay Mahajan offers a compelling argument for waking up to the potential of a continent with a population of over 900 million and a high growth rate, and that “any global firm interested in growth must see . . . as an essential part of its portfolio.”⁷ Mahajan highlights in particular the creativity of Africa’s business in succeeding on the continent despite the many challenges still present and how the consumers―especially the “400 million people in the middle of the market”―have responded and are for grab for those eager to look beyond the negativities that often obscure the discourse on Africa and that have often been relayed by Afro-pessimists.⁸ This renewed economic vitality has been accompanied and sustained by political reforms undertaken in many countries since the end of the Cold War, and which have set the continent on what seems to be a firm democratic trajectory. In spite of setbacks in some countries (Madagascar, Guinea, and Mali) and authoritarian entrenchments in others (Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe), Africa’s democratic outlook has greatly improved over the past decade—a dynamic that has contributed to enhance the continent’s standing in the community of free nations.⁹

Second, the shift to a strategic view of the continent has to do with a high demand for Africa’s energy and other natural resources, which is being fueled by the growth of countries such as China, India, South Korea, and Brazil, all of which are firmly engaged in the race for global influence in the twenty-first century. To sustain their economic growth, these countries― alongside with traditional Western powers―are increasingly turning to Africa to meet their energy and other resource needs. With particular reference to the EU, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that it will overtake the United States to become the biggest importer of oil in 2015.¹⁰ As Michael Charles and Benjamin Mulili demonstrate in chapter 8 of this volume, Africa—which has seen a sustained flow of foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the oil and gas industry over the past years¹¹—remains critical in EU’s energy security policy. Even though there are legitimate questions surrounding the inflow of new oil/resources money to Africa, especially whether this is going to consolidate or impede recent economic and political gains on the continent, one has however to take note of the fact that Africa’s bargaining and strategic position vis-à-vis of external powers has somewhat been improved as a result of this growing interest toward its resources and the financial lever it has provided. As Dambisa Moyo bluntly puts it in Dead Aid, “They’ve got what we want, and we’ve got what they need.”¹²

Third, the shift to a strategic view of Africa reflects growing security concerns from the part of some external powers, in particular the United States and EU countries. The new strategic thinking goes beyond terrorism to frame some of Africa’s endemic and humanitarian problems―HIV/AIDS, diseases, poverty, and mass migrations―in security terms.¹³ It emphasizes the strategic―not just moral―implications of Africa’s humanitarian challenges for Europe. Speaking on the question of immigration from Africa in 2006, Nicolas Sarkozy, the then French Minister of the Interior, observed: “How can we restore confidence in Africa’s youth and persuade them that they don’t need to emigrate in order to have a future? I think this is one of the basic questions of our time. Because our destinies are linked: Africa’s failure today would spell disaster for Europe tomorrow.”¹⁴

Fourth, the shift to a strategic view of Africa underscores the continent’s growing importance in the structures of global governance and the imperative for external powers to secure Africa’s support in advancing the global agenda on terms that better serve their national interests. Africa’s numerical position in bodies of global governance that operate on majority principle and consensus has been strengthened by the ongoing diffusion of global power and increased interdependencies which seem to have reinforced the role of institutions of global governance in responding to common challenges.¹⁵

Fifth, there are social and demographic factors that are contributing to a shift to a strategic vie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Part I   Setting the Context
• Part II   The Partnership in Motion
• Part III   Perspectives and Prospects
• List of Contributors
• Index