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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Continental shifts
By Gamal Nkrumah and Dina Ezzat
Heads of state and government from many of the 54 African and all of 15 European Union countries are expected to attend the Africa-Europe summit meeting in Cairo, scheduled for 3-4 April. However, top level officials, including ministers of foreign affairs from all African and European countries, will be participating, alongside members of the European Commission, the EU's policy-making nerve-centre. President Hosni Mubarak will officially open the conference with the Organisation of African Unity's (OAU) current chairman Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika and Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres. Portugal currently holds the EU chairmanship.
The Africa-Europe summit agenda will focus on a wide range of political and economic issues. While the Europeans see the conference as a mainly political event, Africans would like the Cairo summit to concentrate on the pressing economic and development issues that dog the continent. So as EU countries seek to put democracy and human rights issues in the limelight, African countries will be equally determined to include the critically important questions of economic development. In preliminary meetings a compromise was broached, and both democracy and human rights will be discussed alongside economic matters and development concerns.
Traditionally, the EU had clearly separated its economic relations with North Africa from its economic and development dealings with sub-Saharan Africa. Economic relations between the EU and North Africa have so far been organised within the framework of the European-Mediterranean Partnership while economic relations between the EU and sub-Saharan Africa have fallen beneath the umbrella of the so-called Lomé Convention, which governs the partnership between EU countries and their former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific.
The Europeans have stressed that the EU is committed to facilitating continental and regional African economic integration. "We support both the creation of regional African economic groupings like the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and continental organisations like the OAU," Ambassador Christian Falkowski, head of the European Delegation to Egypt, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The secretary-general of the Africa-Europe summit meeting, Ambassador Ibrahim Hassan, told the Weekly that "we in Africa have been closely watching the increasing interest shown by the EU in African affairs. We are happy to note that Europe no longer wishes to marginalise Africa. On the contrary, we believe Europe wishes to see Africa play a more substantial role in world affairs and the Europeans acknowledge that accelerating the pace of economic development in Africa is in Europe's own interests, as it will inevitably mean larger and more prosperous markets in Africa in which European-based corporations can expand their trade."
European officials, though, are quick to point out that "good governance, a healthy respect for human rights and transparency are key components if Africa's economic take-off is to be successfully launched," according to Falkowski. Nevertheless, Ambassador Falkowski stressed that "the Africa-Europe summit meeting is as good a forum as any for reciprocal political, economic and development dialogue between Africa and Europe to take place and where issues that concern both Africa and Europe can be openly discussed."
African countries have expressed grave concern about the low levels of economic development and the overwhelming poverty that plagues the continent. Some 44 per cent of African people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, live well below the poverty line. Moreover, African countries' economic problems are compounded by a debt burden that has reached $350 billion.
"We hope that this summit will open the door for European investors to consider stepping up their investments in Africa. European investments are vital for the creation of more job opportunities in Africa and can help improve living standards," said an Egyptian diplomat.
"Africa faces crippling problems such as widespread poverty, an AIDS pandemic, illiteracy and a brain drain in which educated Africans seek better economic opportunities and jobs in Europe. And racial discrimination against African immigrants in Europe is a human rights issue that must be included in the agenda of the Africa-Europe summit," the diplomat added.
One of the most important aspects of the Africa-Europe conference is that it presents an opportunity to hold fringe meetings in which bilateral issues and regional problems can be thrashed out. One such meeting is the mini-summit between Mubarak, the Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddhafi and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir. This meeting will focus on the joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative on national reconciliation in Sudan.
Mubarak is also expected to meet with the Algerian president Bouteflika and Morocco's King Mohamed VI to discuss the contentious issue of Western Sahara. Algeria recognises the independence of the Western Sahara and its POLISARIO government while Morocco, which claims the disputed territory, pulled out of the OAU after a majority of African states voted in support of Western Saharan independence, unilaterally-proclaimed in 1976.
The Africa-Europe summit will be preceded by a ministerial meeting on 2 April.
