Heads of state and government to the second European Union
(EU)-Africa Summit, which closed in Lisbon on Sunday, endorsed a
joint strategy aimed at a new partnership between the two
continents.
Heads of delegations
for the EU-Africa summit (L to R) Sudan's President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, Burkina Faso's
Blaisse Compaore, Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov, Libya's
President Muammar Gaddafi and Pan-African Parliament President
Gertrude Mongela of Tanzania stand for a family photo in Lisbon,
Dec. 8, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Four main objectives are included in the joint strategy, with
reinforcing and elevating the EU-Africa political partnership as
the priority. The partnership envisages strengthening institutional
ties and addressing common challenges, especially peace and
security, migration and development, as well as environment
protection.
The joint strategy also ensures that all the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) will be met in all African countries by
the year 2015 while strengthening and promoting peace, security,
sustainable economic development, regional and continental
integration in Africa.
The two sides vowed to jointly promote and sustain a system of
effective multilateralism, with strong, representative and
legitimate institutions, and the reform of the United Nations
system and of other key international institutions, and to address
global challenges and common concerns such as human rights, fair
trade, migration and climate change.
The joint strategy also highlights efforts to facilitate and
promote a broad-based and wide-ranging people-centered
partnership.
Africa and the EU will empower non-state actors and create
conditions to enable them to play an active role in development,
conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction processes.
Both sides will promote holistic approaches to development
processes, and make this joint strategy a permanent platform for
information, participation and mobilization of a broad spectrum of
civil society actors in the EU, Africa and beyond.
To achieve the four main objectives, both the EU and the African
countries will be dedicated to move away from a traditional
relationship and forge a real partnership characterized by equality
and the pursuit of common objectives.
Positive experiences should be built on and lessons be learned
from the past relationship where successful mechanisms and
instruments have been applied in specific policy areas and learn
from shortcomings in other areas, according to the document.
The strategy demands that the Europeans and the Africans promote
more accurate images of each other and encourage mutual
understanding between the peoples and cultures of the
continents.
Starting from the Lisbon summit, meetings of the heads of state
and government will be organized every three years.
The political visibility of the new partnership will also
require political engagement and commitment of the leaders of
Africa and the EU in the period between the summits. At the same
time, bilateral dialogue should be maintained through regular
meetings of senior officials and ministers.
The joint strategy, which provides a long-term policy framework
for Africa-EU relations, will be implemented through successive
Action Plans which will build on the operational part of this joint
strategy and cover proposed priority actions for three years.
The first action plan will be adopted in Lisbon, covering the
period up to the next summit. These action plans will identify the
main political priorities, as well as the policy commitments,
programs and actions that will be needed to achieve them.
The action plans will allow heads of state and government to, on
a regular basis, assess the success and failure of implementation
in key areas and, if necessary, provide a new political
impetus.
(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2007)
