AFRICA. Dimensions of a Continent ONLINE
Curated by Georg Lennkh
THE UPCOMING EU-AFRICA SUMMIT – WILL IT TAKE PLACE?

Georg Lennkh, former Austrian Special Envoy for Africa (2005-2010) and EU Special Representative in Chad (2006-2010)
in conversation with
Geert Laporte, ETTG Director and Co-Director ECDPM – European Center for Development Policy Management

 

Source: https://www.kreisky-forum.org/video/

Twenty-twenty should have been the year of a fundamentally new Africa-Europe partnership, culminating in the sixth EU-AU summit in October in Brussels. Ursula von der Leyen, with a delegation of some 20 European commissioners in her wake, recently traveled to Addis Ababa for meetings with their African Union counterparts. In early March, the European Commission and European External Action Service presented a joint communication for a comprehensive strategy with Africa. But then the COVID-19 health crisis completely blew all that up in the air. Experts and policymakers are now trying to anticipate the effects of the pandemic for countries in Europe and Africa, but not yet for Africa-Europe relations. Will the two continents be able to jointly deal with the expected health, economic and political consequences? Will the crisis also open new windows of opportunity? And who will be the winners and losers of this crisis?