There are still no plans to reschedule a high-level meeting between EU and African leaders, European Council President Charles Michel said Tuesday.
EU and African Union leaders had planned to meet via videoconference in early December, but the African side canceled at the last minute. The unexpected unraveling of the tele-summit, after the previous postponement of a full-format meeting in October because of coronavirus, exposed tensions in a relationship that Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had declared as one of the EU’s top policy priorities.
Some EU officials have expressed particular concern about the failure to meet with African leaders given a continuing rivalry with China for geopolitical influence. China held its own summit with African leaders last June. Both China and the EU have stepped up assistance to Africa related to the coronavirus pandemic, including shipments of medical supplies.
Michel was asked about revised plans for a meeting during a news conference in Lisbon with Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa to mark the start of Portugal’s six-month presidency of the Council of the EU. At the news conference, Costa had noted that relations with the EU’s southern continental neighbor were a priority for him as well.
But when asked on Tuesday what format he envisioned for a rescheduled meeting, Michel conceded that, for the moment at least, there were no firm plans at all. In a nod to the sensitivities of arranging such a gathering, Michel stressed that all decisions would have to be taken in consultation with African counterparts.
“We must be in dialogue with African authorities to define the format,” Michel said, with a slight nervous chuckle. “We cannot decide by ourselves the format in question. You perhaps know that it was imagined to have a meeting in at the beginning of December but COVID made it impossible. A videoconference was also imagined, it was postponed. We must see now with the African authorities at what moment and in what form a tele-meeting could happen considering the circumstances.”
Michel said he was more focused on substance than form.
“More importantly, besides the format, is the objective,” Michel said. “And I share with António Costa the conviction that the EU must be very engaged with the ensemble of African countries because there are lots of things we need to do in common — stimulate the investments, support the development, the sustainable development in Africa, develop the operational partnership, and our priorities concerning climate, and concerning digital agenda, are also priorities that we have to translate in this capacity of developing exchanges with Africa.”
Michel noted that the EU last month reached a tentative political agreement with African and Caribbean nations, and he said he was eager to help ease the debt burden on African nations to help them cope with the economic fallout of the pandemic.
“It’s a point we’d also like to highlight in order to liberate the budget capacities for African countries,” he said, “with goals to support infrastructure, access to education, access to health services.”
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