European Council President Charles Michel is confronting one of the trickiest problems yet in the era of pandemic politics: how to cancel an in-person summit with African leaders scheduled for December 9, while insisting that an EU leaders’ summit should be held in person the very next day.
Michel isn’t alone in the bind. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently the chairperson of the African Union — the continental union of 55 member countries — recently announced that an important AU summit scheduled for December 5 would be held virtually because of the health situation. That makes it hard to justify traveling to Brussels four days later.
In a bid to help each other tiptoe the treacherous path of summit politics, Ramaphosa sent a confidential letter to Michel and other EU leaders this week, urging that the EU shift the December 9 meeting to a virtual format, according to two officials who have seen it. But while that insulates Ramaphosa from criticism on his own continent, it still leaves Michel in an awkward spot in insisting that the 27 EU heads should still come to Brussels rather than hold a videoconference.
According to officials familiar with Michel’s thinking, the Council president is adamant that EU leaders cannot manage their December agenda, filled with controversial topics, by tele-summit. The leaders are due to discuss a continuing standoff over the bloc’s €1.82 trillion budget-and-recovery plan; the end-game negotiations with the U.K. over a post-Brexit trade deal; more ambitious targets to fight climate change; potential sanctions against Turkey; as well as the ongoing pandemic response. A Dutch journalist’s infiltration of a virtual EU defense ministers’ meeting has also highlighted the security risks of videoconferences.
While recent months have shown it is extremely difficult if not impossible to negotiate thorny issues by videoconference, many EU national leaders are under pressure to show solidarity with their constituents who are facing a winter holiday season constrained by ongoing containment measures.
Several EU officials and diplomats have voiced objections to the idea of an in-person summit with the Africans given the health risks. Rampahosa’s letter, at least, gives Michel cover for saying that he changed the EU-AU format at the request of his guests, rather than because of the EU’s own safety concerns.
Shifting the meeting with the Africans, however, is also complicated. The AU has 55 member countries, but a videoconference with such a large number of leaders is unwieldy. As a result, Michel and his team are considering a change in format that would bring together a more limited number of institutional leaders.
The likely postponement of the meeting is just the latest setback this year for what the EU had envisioned as a dramatic pivot toward its southern neighbor. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia the very first week after she took office last year.
The dialogue with African leaders is a top personal priority for Michel who made a concerted effort to cultivate his relationships in African capitals during his tenure as Belgian prime minister. Michel had held off earlier calls to scrap the in-person summit hoping that the health situation would improve enough to allow the African leaders to visit before the end of the year.
