6th EP-PAP Inter-parliamentary meeting to enhance partnership

The sixth Interparliamentary meeting of the European Parliament (EP) and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) will be held virtually on 20 November 2020. The main objective of the meeting is to evaluate the strong points and shortcomings of the existing partnership, as well as to engage on the European Commission’s new proposal for the EU-Africa Strategy and to assess how this is in line with the existing well-established cooperation context.

The last EP-PAP meeting was held in Côte d'Ivoire from 27 to 28 November 2017, in the run up for the 5th AU-EU Summit. This meeting resulted in the adoption of the Abidjan Appeal, and covered eleven priority topics for Africa-EU relations.

In addition to the significance of this Parliamentary forum that serves to boost the historical ties between Africa and Europe, Hon. Bouras DJAMEL, Acting President of the PAP is hopeful that it will reinforce a sense of common destiny between the peoples of the two continents ahead of the next EU-African Union scheduled to take place in spring 2021. PAP’s Acting President highlights that the Joint Africa - EU Strategy (JAES) will also be monitored and refocussed when Heads of state and government meet next year.

“The EP-PAP Summit has become a critical platform that informs the work of Heads of state and Government as they make decisions that have an impact on the lives of the peoples that we represent as continental Parliaments. It is therefore important that these consultations are taking place at this time so that we can prepare a solid case on the needs of Africans and Europeans to be put on the table of our leaders,” says Hon. Djamel.

Launched at the first Africa - EU Summit in Cairo in 2000, the Africa - EU partnership has been defined since 2007 through the Joint Africa - EU Strategy (JAES), which has been implemented through multiannual roadmaps and action plans. The strategy sets out the intention of both continents to move beyond a donor/recipient relationship towards long-term cooperation on jointly identified mutual and complementary interests.

Hon. Maria Soraya RODRIGUEZ RAMOS, Chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the Pan-African Parliament says that in this framework on 9 March 2020 the European Commission issued a proposal for a new EU - Africa strategy, based on five pillars that include green transition, digital transformation, sustainable growth and jobs, peace and governance and migration and mobility. The European Parliament is preparing an own initiative report to reinforce the strategy proposal.

“The Parliamentary meeting should thus contribute to a definition of an AU - EU shared vision on the future of EU - Africa partnership, in which the parliamentary cooperation dimension will play a central role, also due to the similarity of the two super national parliamentary structures, the Pan-African Parliament and the European one” says Hon. Ramos.

Other topics, all interrelated and connected, that will be dealt with at the meeting, are migration, asylum and youth mobility; gender equality and elimination of all forms of gender; and silencing the Guns by 2020.

A joint communique’ at the end of the proceedings will inform and feed into the works of the EU - AU High Level Intergovernmental Meeting planned for 9 December.

Source: Pan African Parliament Media Office