The potential exists for Central and Eastern European states to influence a departure from a top-down, donor–recipient dynamic in EU–Africa relations, towards a more equal partnership.
There has been a significant evolution in relations between Africa and an enlarged European Union (EU) in recent years, as African and European leaders have urged a departure from a top-down, donor–recipient dynamic towards a more equal relationship based on trade, investment and partnership. With negotiations for a new post-Cotonou Partnership Agreement and a renewed Joint Africa-EU Strategy now due to be concluded in 2021, there is the potential for a critical reset.
The negotiations are taking place at a time of significant volatility for the EU. Even before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the context was shaped by the UK’s withdrawal from the bloc and the redrafting of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF – the EU’s long-term budget); the rise of populism and growing influence of the extreme right; and the perspectives of the Central and Eastern European member states, which are for the first time helping to set the legal basis underpinning the EU’s relations with Africa. Many of these internal dynamics have been concentrated around migration and the increased securitization of the EU’s development policies. Now the pandemic could potentially cause EU member states and African countries alike to become more inward-looking, while at the same time heightening the development challenges facing many African states.
An enlarged EU is a new EU. Most of the newer member states – 13 in total – which joined successively in 2004, 2007 and 2013, were part of the communist bloc, and all have participated in each of the processes highlighted above. This paper explores how this series of enlargements has influenced EU relations with Africa, the ways in which former communist countries are reconnecting with African countries as EU member states, and how they can add value to the EU’s evolving partnership with African states.
As part of the research for this paper, 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted with policymakers at meetings in Brussels and Bucharest, as well as online. The paper begins with an exploration of current dynamics within the EU, and the negotiations that are currently in progress between the EU and African states.
