The European Commission (EC) recently presented a new EU-Africa strategy titled “Towards a Comprehensive Strategy with Africa.” From green technology, digital transformation, and sustainable growth to peace, security, and a balanced approach to migration and mobility, the report addresses many essential areas of cooperation. EU High Representative Josip Borell underlined in particular the need for security and peace cooperation. Here the EU is certainly the biggest supporter of all activities combatting violence and armed conflicts. But, as Borell reiterated after a visit by the EC to the African Union in Addis Ababa: “The future of Europe is strongly connected to the demographic, economic and political dynamics of Africa. Unfortunately the public sees Africa only through the migration prism.” Regarding the issue of climate change, he correctly added:” Our climate future depends as much from what Africa doing as from our own efforts.”
Priority for women and youth
The Commissioner for International Partnership, Jutta Urpilainen, has underlined the role of women and the growing number of young people in Africa. When I met her last time in Brussels – I first met her when she was a high-ranking Finnish politician — she showed a strong engagement in her new position. Urpilainen is especially correct in her setting of priorities. In many countries, women fight for peace and reconciliation and play an important economic role. In addition, climate activities are more supported by women than by men.
And young people – especially in cities – are protesting more and more against their elderly autocratic leaders. The Economist recently wrote: “Young, urban populations want the right to express themselves, vote in fair elections and hold leaders to account.” The European Union (EU) should seek direct contacts with young people, provide them with leadership training, and remind elderly leaders of their obligations to prepare young people to take over democratic governments and progressive economic systems. The EU cannot and should not intervene, but it should take sides.
Free trade?
The EU is also the most important trading partner for Africa; trade volumes are nearly twice that of those between Africa and China and five times those between Africa and the US. But the EU should give the African economy more chances in European markets, and it should seek to promote domestic and intra-African trade. And it is satisfying to find in the EU document an open attitude towards mobility, with a special emphasis on regular and safe – including circular - migration. Unfortunately, not all member governments share this attitude.
But the new EU-Africa agreement has its deficiencies too. Isabelle Brachet wrote in the EUobserver: “The relentless support for ‘a comprehensive continent-to-continent free trade area’ ignores the risks posed by trade liberalization where labour, fiscal and social regulation is immensely diverse and sometimes weak.” In general, the question of inequality and social issues is not addressed with enough emphasis. But African governments will have enough time to correct these deficiencies until the expected agreement on the strategy at the EU-Africa summit in Brussels later this year.
African DNA as a resource
A new phenomenon should also be given more attention. A recent article in the Financial Times was titled “How African DNA could change the world.” Until recently, researchers concentrated on the genetic material of people of European descent. Only 2% of genetic material comes from people of African descent. But “the lack of African genetic material constitutes a significant obstacle to understanding how our bodies and diseases function. African genomes are not only humanity’s oldest but our most diverse, and that diversity holds within it an almost unfathomable potential - from scientific breakthrough to gene editing to the rewriting of our evolutionary history, the very story we tell ourselves about ourselves.”
In recent years, African genetic material has received more attention. Still, the scientific infrastructure in Africa itself is very weak. And once again, foreign forces seek to plunder the continent’s resources: “’[f]rom diamonds to gold, oil, bauxite, rare earths and, of course, people - the continent is rich in resources but has seen almost no benefit from its bounty. Big Pharma‘s record is no better than Big Oil. What is to keep Africa’s great genetic diversity from becoming yet another resource extracted and redefined into multi billion dollar drugs abroad?”
Stolen art
The exploitation of Africa and its people also includes cultural and religious artifacts that were stolen or “sold” under pressure from colonial masters. In many museums worldwide and especifically in Europe, we can find many stolen pieces of art. But not everything that has an African origin arrived in Europe through criminal or suspicious ways. The debate about the restitution of art to Africa is at the moment particularly lively in Germany, where the Humboldtforum in Berlin is soon to open its doors.
In 2001, I was invited to chair the “Internationale Expertenkommission Historische Mitte Berlin,” which proposed – after intensive discussions over more than a year – to create a forum to promote a cultural and scientific dialogue between European and other world cultures, especially in Africa. It would also include museums with artifacts from these cultures. When I presented the report of the expert commission in April 2002, questions over the origin of the relevant pieces of art were not raised. But soon afterwards, French President Macron established a commission to deal with that issue and start a wider debate. Restitution is one answer that European museums should and must consider, but greater cooperation between museums across Europe and especially in Africa should also be considered.
Most importantly, Africans must be treated as equals. This is true for economic relations between Europe and our southern continent, the research and use of African genetic material, and art of African origin in European museums. Europe’s colonial past should make us humble, and our common future should induce stronger forms of cooperation.
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.