EU/Afrika — 10th EU-South Africa ministerial political dialogue

Joint Africa-EU Strategy

The Par­ties con­tin­ued to attach great impor­tance to the Joint Africa-EU Strat­e­gy, which has been instru­men­tal in putting rela­tions between the EU and Africa on a new, equal foot­ing. Both Par­ties under­lined the Strategy’s impor­tance as a polit­i­cal frame­work to strength­en coop­er­a­tion between Africa and Europe on par­tic­u­lar­ly peace and secu­ri­ty issues, advanc­ing Africa’s devel­op­ment agen­da and the attain­ment of the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals (MDGs), and glob­al chal­lenges such as the eco­nom­ic cri­sis and cli­mate change. 

The Par­ties wel­comed progress made in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Strategy’s first Action Plan (2008–2010). Both Par­ties wel­comed the pro­posed options to improve the imple­men­ta­tion of the Joint Strat­e­gy as agreed by the Africa-EU Min­is­te­r­i­al Dia­logue Meet­ing held in Lux­em­bourg in April 2010. The Par­ties also under­scored the impor­tance of con­tin­u­ing to improve the insti­tu­tion­al archi­tec­ture sup­port­ed by col­lec­tive own­er­ship, inputs and resources.

Both Par­ties reaf­firmed their readi­ness to active­ly sup­port the strength­ened imple­men­ta­tion of the Action Plan and called upon all oth­er actors to accel­er­ate efforts to achieve tan­gi­ble results and added val­ue for the ben­e­fit of our citizens.

The active par­tic­i­pa­tion of all stake­hold­ers includ­ing, Region­al Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ties (RECs), Par­lia­ments, the Pri­vate Sec­tor and Civ­il Soci­ety is essen­tial for the effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of this inter­con­ti­nen­tal part­ner­ship. The Par­ties stress their joint com­mit­ment towards a suc­cess­ful Africa-EU Sum­mit in Novem­ber 2010 and the fur­ther deep­en­ing of the rela­tion­ship, includ­ing through enhanced bilat­er­al polit­i­cal and pol­i­cy dia­logue, bet­ter coor­di­na­tion in the UN and in oth­er inter­na­tion­al bod­ies and high-lev­el con­fer­ences, and through active sup­port of the African region­al and con­ti­nen­tal inte­gra­tion agenda.

Glob­al Eco­nom­ic Crisis

The Par­ties reit­er­at­ed their firm com­mit­ment to the deci­sions of the Lon­don and Pitts­burgh G20 Meet­ings and in par­tic­u­lar on the agreed finan­cial mar­ket reforms, and the Frame­work for Strong, Sus­tain­able and Bal­anced Growth. In this regard, the Par­ties exchanged views about the need for an inten­si­fied fol­low-up to the whole range of G‑20 com­mit­ments of rel­e­vance to devel­op­ing coun­tries. The Par­ties believed that under­rep­re­sent­ed devel­op­ing coun­tries should have a greater voice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the inter­na­tion­al finan­cial insti­tu­tions, includ­ing their man­dates and gov­er­nance. The Par­ties looked for­ward to con­tin­ued engage­ment on these issues at the G20 Sum­mit to be host­ed by Cana­da in June 2010.

The Par­ties empha­sised the con­cern that the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis is ham­per­ing the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals and reaf­firmed the need for deliv­er­ing on devel­op­ment assis­tance commitments. 

Cli­mate Change

The EU and South Africa exchanged views on the out­comes of the UN Sum­mit in Copen­hagen and dis­cussed the way forward.

The Par­ties wel­comed the Copen­hagen Accord as a step towards a fair, effec­tive trans­par­ent and inclu­sive mul­ti­lat­er­al out­come. The meet­ing acknowl­edged that although the Accord is not ambi­tious enough, it rep­re­sents polit­i­cal agree­ment on many dif­fi­cult issues in the nego­ti­a­tions and should give direc­tion and impe­tus to the nego­ti­a­tions lead­ing up to a full mul­ti­lat­er­al agree­ment under the UNFCCC. In this regard, the meet­ing under­lined the need to con­tin­ue to work towards an ambi­tious, legal­ly bind­ing agree­ment build­ing on the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Pro­to­col to keep glob­al warm­ing below 2°C rel­a­tive to pre-indus­tri­al levels.

The EU and South Africa wel­comed the expres­sions of sup­port for the Accord and the mit­i­ga­tion actions and com­mit­ments put for­ward thus far and urged coun­tries that have not yet done so to put for­ward such actions or com­mit­ments as soon as pos­si­ble. Both sides also wel­comed the col­lec­tive com­mit­ment by devel­oped coun­tries to pro­vide “fast start” finance approach­ing about €21bn between 2010 and 2012, includ­ing the EU pledge of €7.2bn for the peri­od 2010-12, and under­lined the need to make “fast-start” finance avail­able as soon as pos­si­ble. Fur­ther­more, both sides wel­comed the com­mit­ment by devel­oped coun­tries to a goal of mobi­liz­ing joint­ly €70bn annu­al­ly by 2020 to sup­port the mean­ing­ful and trans­par­ent imple­men­ta­tion of adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion actions by devel­op­ing countries.

The EU took note of South Africa’s inten­tion to cut its GHG emis­sions from busi­ness as usu­al by 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025 and that the extent to which this action will be imple­ment­ed depends on the pro­vi­sion of finan­cial resources, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and capac­i­ty build­ing sup­port by devel­oped coun­tries. South Africa wel­comed the EU’s com­mit­ment to uni­lat­er­al­ly reduce GHG emis­sions by 20% between 1990 and 2020 and the EU’s offer to reduce emis­sions by 30% in the con­text of an ambi­tious inter­na­tion­al agreement.