Podcasts about eu africa

Enhancing peace and security cooperation is a key pillar of the EU-Africa partnership, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2025. In the second address of the 2025 Development Matters lecture series, which is kindly supported by Irish Aid, Mr Johan Borgstam, EU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, presents his assessment of the situation in the region based on his recent visits and focus on the EU's engagement in support of peace, stability, and security in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mr Borgstam is a Swedish diplomat with extensive national and EU experience, which includes serving as the Head of the EU Delegation to Ethiopia and ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Greece. He was appointed the EUSR for the Great Lakes Region on 1 September 2024. In this role, he supports the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs in implementing the EU's foreign policy objectives in the Great Lakes Region. His mission is to contribute to building a stronger, more comprehensive, and more strategic partnership with the countries in the region, maintaining close contact with key regional organisations and fora, such as the African Union and the East African Community, as well as the United Nations, the International Financial Institutions, and non-state actors when relevant. It is the second lecture of the 2025 Development Matters series, which is kindly sponsored by Irish Aid.

This address by Prof Emanuel Del Re, the EU Special Representative for the Sahel, which is part of the IIEA Development Matters series supported by Irish Aid, focuses on the evolving dynamics of the EU-Africa relationship, with a particular emphasis on the Sahel region. In her address, Prof Del Re explores key strategic areas such as security, development, governance, and migration, highlighting how the EU's comprehensive approach in the Sahel aligns with broader African Union priorities. The discussion delves into the challenges and opportunities of fostering sustainable peace and development in the region, addressing complex issues like violent extremism, climate change, and humanitarian crises. About the Speaker: Emanuela Del Re is the European Union Special Representative for the Sahel. She was Italian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from June 2018 to February 2021. She was an Elected Member of the Italian Lower House of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, from March 2018 to June 2021 and resigned to take up her appointment by the EU Council as the EU Special Representative for the Sahel region in Africa. She was a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the Italian Parliament until June 2021 and was appointed President of the Standing Committee on the implementation of Agenda 2030 and sustainable development until June 2021. She is a Jean Monnet Professor of Sociology at the Sapienza University, a director of film-documentaries on conflicts, coexistence and ethno-religious persecutions, and founder and president until 2017 of EPOS, a non-profit organization active in conflict areas with projects for the reconstruction of the Civil Society and governance, in particular for refugees and welcoming communities.

The EU - Africa Migration Agenda – Realising A New Partnership by Overseas Development Institute

La rassegna stampa europea a cura del Centro Europe Direct dell'Università di Roma Tre. Ospiti di questa puntata Alberto Virella, diplomatico spagnolo e ambasciatore di Spagna in Senegal, e Romeo Gigbaguidi, direttore del Think Tank Lemafriq. (09.10.2023)

The UN chief has called it an epidemic of coups. In Africa, since 2020, military officers have seized power, or attempted to do so, in numerous sub-Saharan countries. Just in the last two and a half months, soldiers in Gabon announced a takeover of power, while in Niger, members of the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum and announced that they were seizing power. Supporters of the new regime in Niger waved Russian flags, as did some of those who supported the coup in Mali in 2021. The sight of those flags has been a punch in the gut for France, which until recently regarded its former colonies as close allies. But the pro-Russian sentiment has also worried the European Union. What explains this pro-Russia feeling? And is there much the EU can do about it?

Show Notes and Transcript New York Times bestselling author and award winning journalist Richard Poe always gives great context and depth to news stories so he returns to Hearts of Oak for a leftfield conversation concerning Britain and Africa.  Last year, Italy's Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni suddenly started denouncing French neo-colonialism, blaming them for keeping Africa poor and forcing the inhabitants to flee to Europe.  Richard asks if she is focussing in the right direction, is it not the British who are destabilising Africa through economic levers and intelligence operations?  We have seen African governments falling like dominoes with 7 coups in just three years.  What lies behind these and are they connected or just purely random? Richard Poe is a New York Times-bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He has written widely on business, science, history and politics. His books include The Shadow Party, co-written with David Horowitz; The Einstein Factor, co-written with Win Wenger; Perfect Fear: Four Tales of Terror; Black Spark, White Fire; the WAVE series of network marketing books; and many more. Richard was formerly editor of David Horowitz's FrontPageMag, contributing editor of NewsMax, senior editor of SUCCESS magazine, reporter for the New York Post, and managing editor of the East Village Eye. Connect with Richard... WEBSITE: https://www.richardpoe.com/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/RealRichardPoe?s=20 SUBSTACK: https://richardpoe.substack.com/ BOOKS: https://amzn.eu/d/18lNMtp Interview recorded 8.9.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more...https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Please subscribe, like and share!   Subscribe now Transcript (Hearts of Oak) Hello, Hearts of Oak, and welcome to another interview coming up in a moment with Richard Poe, who re-joined us. He was last with us when we looked at his book, The Shadow Party, looking at George Soros and his control, power, and influence. And today we look at something completely different, and that is a thread that he put up on Twitter titled, Are the British Destabilizing Africa? And this is from a video that Giorgia Meloni, the Italian PM, put up denouncing French neo-colonialism and I often think well the Brits did good in Africa but maybe the French and the Belgians and the Germans and they were a bit naughty. But Richard brings his deep understanding, his delves deep into this subject and, exposes maybe why that thinking is not necessarily correct, how the British have been closely involved, look an economic side of it but also the intelligence services and how they operate and look in some of the recent coups, maybe what lies behind that a little bit. So much to pack into this huge subject. Richard Poe, it is wonderful to have you back with us again. Thank you so much for joining us again today. (Richard Poe) Thanks, Peter, it's great to be here.  Great, and we're going to go through quite a bit. Just before we jump in, I'll just say to the viewers, that Richard is well worth following because his tweets actually bring something quite different. Bring the historical side to a lot of what happens and I think the conservatives movement can often be guilty of kind of in your face what's happened that morning and by the afternoon it's old news and just for our viewers and listeners I think Richard brings context often to stories that are happening but whenever Richard is last on we look through his book The Shadow Party. How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and the 60s radicals seize control of the Democratic Party. That is in the description for you to go back and have a look at and delve deeper into that topic. But he is a bestseller on many other books but that's what we stuck on and of course former editor of Front Page Magazine and we've had David Horowitz on with us before. But Richard there, people can obviously find you @RealRichardPoe, richardpoe.com, the website, and Richard Poe on Substack. Everything is in there for the viewer and listeners to take advantage of. Richard, one tweet that caught my eye, and we will delve a little bit into that, is on Africa and the Brits. And as much as I like blaming the French for everything as a Brit, that is our national pastime, sometimes the British have been at fault over history for a few things. If it hasn't been the French, it's probably been the Brits or the Belgians maybe. But there was a statement I think by Georgia Meloni, the Premier of Italy, and she had started denouncing French neo-colonialism and you had put up about the British destabilizing Africa. Do you want to maybe just begin with that and set out why we can't point the fingers solely at the French? Right. Well, basically, I knew something about, let's call it the neo-colonial infrastructure of Africa, because I was actually hired by a think tank, oh, more than 10 years ago to do a paper on that subject. And for various reasons, it was never published, but it was extremely eye-opening. What I basically discovered, to my astonishment, was that the EU, and in particular Great Britain, France as well, but really Great Britain more than anyone else, had essentially continued their colonial relationship beyond the date when these various African countries supposedly became independent, that what they actually did, they being the various European colonial powers, is they simply set up alternate structures through various kinds of diplomatic channels and the UN system as it was being set up. So that the UN today. Really is a neo-colonial structure. And that's really what I discovered in this research, which again, never saw the light of day. A topic I may write about someday in my memoirs. But so I had studied this in some detail, these NGOs and international treaties and such that had been set up for the very purpose of making sure that those European countries which had formerly owned colonies in Africa continued to maintain that relationship. So specifically the Anglophone colonies that were English speaking, maintained their relationship with Great Britain. The Francophone colonies maintained their relationship with France and so on. And in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, establishing the European Economic Commission, or community. This relationship was actually formalized, whereas the countries which had been former colonies, and I think the way they put it in the treaty, they didn't call them colonies, but they said countries in Africa having a special relationship to members of the EEC, would have a certain kind of membership in the EEC. I think they were called associated members. And they would have a special diplomatic and economic relationship with the EEC, trade privileges and so forth. So maybe because I researched this so deeply, I don't want to bore your viewers with so many details, but the bottom line is, so in the last few weeks on Twitter, we've suddenly seen an uproar from, especially from certain influencers with these coups that have been happening in Africa. In particular, there have been six coups in three years. In a number of countries, most of which are former French colonies. In fact, all of which are former French colonies except Sudan, and the cry has gone out that at last the freedom-loving people of Africa are getting on their feet and overthrowing the yoke of French colonialism. This map has been getting wide circulation and all this enthusiasm from people on Twitter about overthrowing French colonialism. So I thought this was remarkable for a couple of different reasons. First of all, I thought French colonialism was overthrown a long time ago, or at least that's the official story. I remember as a kid, you know, in the 1960s, that was the big thing. The end of colonialism. It's all over. And, you know, these nationalist leaders in Africa who had become, you know, the first presidents of the newly independent countries. These were big pop culture heroes in the 60s. And so now so many decades later to say, finally at last French colonialism is being overthrown. So on the one hand I thought that was interesting because it broke with the pop culture narrative that we were all brought up with that colonialism ended decades ago. All of a sudden it's here, it's now, and it's being overthrown in the year 2023. But the other thing that caught my attention is that they were specifically referring to French colonialism, when in fact there were several colonial powers, in Africa. There was Great Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, the list goes on. And in the case of Italy and Germany, their colonies were taken away because of world wars. But still, there were several colonial powers that remained, which still considered themselves officially, quote unquote, responsible for their former colonies, which meant, especially in the case of France, that they would intervene militarily in those countries when they felt there was some need to do so. And the French in particular have done this probably more than any other quote unquote former colonial power, but the British do it too. They just have a more subtle way of doing it. And so this is what I discovered that think tank research had done more than 10 years ago. So that was the second reason that I was, or the third reason that I was surprised by this sudden enthusiasm for throwing off the yoke of French colonialism, because I knew that in fact there was such a thing as French colonialism, and there was in fact such a thing as EU colonialism. The EU itself as a bureaucratic entity has directly involved itself in the management and admin of the African continent. And so I knew all these things, but most people don't. And it just was surprising to me to suddenly see this acknowledgment of that colonial relationship which in the past had been very controversial and hushed up and denied. Can I ask, because I've been reading a book on tax havens and delving into that world, understanding about money flows, and the book basically starts with the French, takes Gabon as an example of how the French set up the president there, and the coup has supposedly removed his son Ali Bongo and they use this as an example of how the French control large parts of Africa and I read that as a Brit thinking you see France have been really bad we're actually Africa should be thanking the Brits for what we've done for education roads and is is that a very simplistic view of Africa.  Well, when you say simplistic you mean the view that Africa was actually better off under colonialism?  Yes, because I know I've seen stuff and I've seen even you retweeted the thought that actually what Africa needs is for those colonial powers to go back and to fix it once again. That obviously would not be a popular view in many parts of Africa with the whole conversation about payments, colonial payments, repatriations, all of that. But my simplistic view is, well, Britain could actually fix that, build a few more roads, a few more hospitals, a few more schools, and life would be good again. Is that view extremely simplistic? Well, I would simply have to confess that I don't know, in answer to that question. The fact is, what I'm learning now, excuse me, the research that I'm doing now about the American Revolution and the economic and financial reasons for, the reasons why our founding fathers wanted independence from England in the first place, I'm really learning a lot about the colonial system and how it works. And you know, there are people in America who say essentially the same thing. We're not quite in as bad of a fix as Africa yet, although we seem to be headed that direction pretty quickly. There are people in America who are monarchists and who are questioning whether we were better off under the British, as strange as that might seem to you. And you're seeing that more and more. I think it's being pushed a little bit on social media in some quarters as a kind of PSYOP, and the fact is, you really have to dig to some extent to try to figure out, you know, why did the founding fathers feel so strongly that they needed to get away from England? And there actually were some really compelling reasons, most of which had to do with an extremely oppressive economic system that was enforced by law, in particular by the so-called Navigation Act, whose effect was basically to keep the colonies by force of law in a situation where we had to produce raw materials, food, crops, tobacco, cotton, things like that, and to sell them very cheaply in England and then to get all of our manufacturers from England, where they were beginning to have their industrial revolution and we had to buy them more expensively. And this is the heart and soul of the colonial relationship. The colony produces raw materials and food and sells them to the, very cheaply. The mother country then sells us, the colony, everything that we need in terms of manufactured goods, but they sell them quite expensively. And so there is a permanently enforced balance of trade, which is wildly disadvantageous to the colonized state. And this system is enforced by local corruption, because in order to make such a system work, you have to get local people to support the colonial relationship, and you make them very, very rich, but at the expense of the majority of people. And the best illustration for that in the United States is the pre-Civil War South, the Antebellum South, where you had a cotton-producing economy, which was almost entirely run for Britain. Almost all the cotton was sold, I think more than 80 percent, was sold to Great Britain, which was, of course, at that time the leading producer of cotton textiles in the world. And so some people, like our little Harris family in Gone with the Wind, got very, very rich selling cotton to England. But the way they did it was by enslaving people and making them work for free as slaves. And it was argued at the time of the American Civil War and in the years leading up to it that this colonial system, that essentially the American South had been recolonized by England and that slavery was the result of that. This was argued by certain economists at the time who were sympathetic to the Northern position. They were saying that the institution of slavery in the South was a direct result of the elite southern planters whose livelihood depended on Great Britain, on trading with them. Always having to try to please their British buyers by keeping the price low because the British did have other places where they could go. They were constantly trying to develop other sources of high-quality cotton in Brazil, in India, in Egypt, in other places. And so the southern planters who were what modern scholars would call a colonial elite, they were a small portion of the population who enforced essentially a British colonial system because it made them rich personally, but it was at the cost of everyone else, where the black slaves and the poor whites as well, essentially there wasn't much left for them at the end. And they weren't allowed to develop an industrial economy because that's not what the British wanted. They wanted the South to remain an agrarian society that devoted itself to selling cotton. So this situation actually led directly to the American Civil War, which was the most terrible episode in our history. And I wrote an article about this called How the British caused the American Civil War. What happened is the North started to, trying to impose tariffs on overseas trade for the specific purpose of discouraging the southern planters from selling to England and the British did what they do when their colonial interests are threatened. They sent in their secret agents and their provocateurs and one in particular named Thomas Cooper, who was a British, apparently, intelligence agent. He had first gotten his start going to France and helping to stir up the French Revolution. Then he moved to South Carolina. He became a very prominent, respected person. He was a judge. And in 1828, he delivered a speech calling for secession of the South. And this speech is widely recognized by historians as having been the beginning of the Southern secession movement. So because of that and various other manoeuvres, including material assistance, which Great Britain gave to the South during the Civil War. It is very clear and in fact undeniable, although it's been scrubbed pretty much from our history books. It is undeniable that Great Britain caused and instigated the American Civil War and did everything in their power to help the South win. And you can see British newspapers and political speeches by British statesmen. There was no question that they were on the side of the South and they wanted the South to win and they tried very hard to intervene, including having the French put a very large army into Mexico, putting a lot of British troops into Canada. So, what I'm saying by this, Peter, is that when you look behind the scenes, when you look at the surface, you might think that colonialism, or British colonialism, is seemingly benign, and that it actually helps people who are in a lower phase of development to develop infrastructure and trade and education and health and all these things, that it brings in money, it brings in expertise, and all of that. But when you look a a little deeper, you realize that the intention of the colonializers or the colonizers, whatever. Is not fundamentally a good intention. That what they want is to set up economic relationships that are actually disadvantageous to the colonized country in the long run. And to maintain those relationships, even if it means tearing apart a country in civil war, and in our case a country of people of European and British and Irish stock, especially at that time. It wasn't even a matter of race, you know. It's just when those economic interests are threatened, the colonizing power becomes very ruthless and the colonial elites become loyal to a foreign country instead of to their own country, which is what happened in our South. So, on the one hand, yes, I would agree that this question of were certain parts of the world under colonialism, I don't want to answer with a knee-jerk response to say, oh, out with the colonizers, it's racist, it's sexist, it's homophobic, it's whatever. Yeah, I just threw in homophobic just for the heck of it. Actually, I don't even say that. But I mean, what I'm saying is I hear what you're saying, I hear your question and I absolutely don't go with the knee jerk. Woke or politically correct, autumn idea that colonialism was totally bad. I don't go with it. I think it's a complicated question. But I also think that my research into the colonial past of my own country, the United States shows that our relationship with England was in fact terribly damaging to our country. Even though there were good aspects to it as well, because our own industrialization of the building of the Great American Railroads, all of that was funded by British capital. So it's two sides of the same coin. But if you have a foreign country meddling in your affairs and doing things like causing secessions and civil wars, that's a very serious matter. So what would, what would Africa really be like? The narrative now is, well, look, it's in a hopeless condition. The dictators, genocides, wars, constant military coups, and so forth. And if the colonizing powers came back, maybe everything would be better and nicer. But it's not always in the interests of the colonizing powers to make everything nicer and better. And I guess that's what I'm saying. And I also would raise the question as to what extent, these troubles that we're having today are actually caused by covert interference, by the West and by the former colonial powers. And, I think in this case that we're talking about now with these former French colonies, there's some kind of psy-op going on where, for reasons, let's say reasons unknown. Whoever controls the political discourse on Twitter is pretending to be all excited about these military coups and pretending that it all has to do with some mass movement from the ground level of people who want to throw off the yoke of French colonialism. But the fact is, first of all, these countries, most of them have had many, many coups. It's not at all unusual. They're showing this map, they're saying, oh my gosh, six coups in three years. That's actually not so unusual, for those countries or others in Africa. And the other thing that's kind of weird about it is, are these really French colonies or former French colonies, or are they just nominally French colonies and actually some other countries among whom is Great Britain are actually calling the shots there. And so it gets into this, and so I guess on one level I'm saying yes it is it is simplistic if we assume that whatever the news tells us is correct that once upon a time there was colonial Africa then the colonial powers all left for some unstated reason, which is never really adequately explained. And then supposedly these African countries were on their own and then supposedly all hell broke loose and they all started killing and massacring each other. I think it probably is a little naïve to accept that narrative at face value. I am not at all convinced that that's exactly what happened. And what instead appears to have happened is that the old colonial system was replaced by a new colonial system, basically run by the United Nations system, and that these disorders were allowed to go on. And in fact, in some cases, encouraged to go on for all kinds of reasons. I'll give you one example.  Yeah, give me an example and then I'll bring up another piece you had up, so go with your example. One famous example, of course, was the Rwandan genocide in 1994, where now Rwanda was a French colony and, in fact, while the genocide was happening, there were French troops there who were supposedly trying to stop it, and they were very sharply criticized for being strangely ineffective in not being able to stop it, especially since they were modern troops with modern weaponry and these people who were committing the genocide were supposedly armed with only machetes. So there were questions about the French handling of it. But even beyond that, the result of this genocide was that Rwanda, was subsequently taken into the British Commonwealth. Whereas before it had been in the French sphere of influence. And the normal traditional rule of the Commonwealth is that countries who are admitted to it are supposed to be former British colonies, but Rwanda wasn't. It was taken as a special case because the French had supposedly done such a terrible job of not protecting their people that it passed into the proprietorship of Great Britain. And so, I'm not the only person who has to raise an eyebrow and ask the question, qui bono? I mean, if Rwanda passed from French control to British control, and if the pretext for that passage, was the Rwanda genocide, would it be out of line to ask, what caused the genocide in the first place? And to what extent was it possibly even instigated by some foreign power, as was the American Civil War, as we're now learning more than 150 years after the fact. So that's one example. I could give others, but you said you had a point you wanted to make. Well, because you obviously, in a lot of the information you put out, you're talking about the intelligence services of the West and how they work behind the scenes. But then also there's the economic side. And this was, this is kind of the article I was touching on, let me bring up, this was a Daily Mail article, Recolonize Africa. And you said that it seems to be saying, and this is an old article, 2005, but it gives historical context once again, says it appears to say that Africa's become so violent and lawless that most African countries will welcome, kind of the West, colonial powers coming back in again. But then you mentioned the kind of colonial economic side, I think, when you look at the EU and how the EU keeps a lot of the countries poor through their tax and tariff systems is, yeah. I'm wondering where does, again, the fault lies at the economic side? Is it still the intelligence services working very much within those countries? Is it a mixture of those two? Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?  Well, I would go so far as to say that I don't believe that the colonial powers of Europe specifically, ever let go of their colonies, especially France and Britain. I think they simply found a different way to administer them and actually a cheaper and more efficient way where they didn't have to physically occupy these countries anymore and they didn't have to be held responsible for things like mass murders and genocides and coups and so forth, that they could have a more rough and ready kind of environment and they didn't have to worry about looking good in the face of world opinion. So in some ways it's actually a better situation for them than the situation they had before where they really had to make everything look good because their flag was flying over these various countries and if they committed terrible atrocities or allowed atrocities to be committed there would be consequences. Other European countries would criticize them and would take advantage. And we see that, for example, in the ruckus that the British propagandists made at the turn of the century over the Belgian Congo, where terrible atrocities were committed by King Leopold II in the push to harvest rubber, and he basically enslaved the whole people of the Congo and subjected them to terrible, inhumane practices. And the British, for their own reasons, made a huge, big deal about that. This was back in the turn of the century, of the 20th century, in the 1900s. And they made a huge ruckus about it and said, oh, how terrible, look how badly he's treating these people. The part of that story you never hear about is that the British themselves, British interests were heavily involved in the rubber trade in the Belgian Congo and were taking part in all of it. That part is never mentioned. Likewise, there was a similar ruckus in Peru, again over rubber harvesting. Now Peru was officially never anyone's colony since its independence from Spain, but in fact a lot of people don't know that the British basically exercised an informal control of Peru and some say that they still do to this day. And there was another big public relations ruckus over cruelties related to the rubber trade in Peru, which again British missionaries and human rights activists were leading. And it was somehow effectively concealed that the British themselves were deeply involved in committing these atrocities. So it's really a world of smoke and mirrors, where propaganda and psychological operations have really been part of the whole toolkit of colonialism really since the very beginning, and I believe that the reason the British became the greatest and most successful colonizers in the world is specifically because they are the best propagandists and the best at psychological operations. They basically invented modern psyops, and they're the very best in that field to this day, and that's really what it's all about. It's all about how to do things in foreign countries without seeming to be doing them, or to blame other people for doing them, such as blaming King Leopold II of Belgium for all these atrocities, and he certainly was guilty of them, but leaving out the part that British financial interests were in there very heavily, helping him to commit them. So this continues to go on today, where we have now a very fluid situation, a neo-colonial situation, as the left, as the Marxists named it decades ago, where the colonial colonizing countries are still there, and they're still probably just as much in control as ever were, but no longer held responsible to keep order in the same way they used to be. So it's really kind of a better situation for them. They can get away with a lot more. Now in these, the interesting thing in that article by Andrew Roberts, the British historian, he wrote that article in 2005. A lot of people in our, as you pointed out, in our social media culture think 2005 was, you know, like the last millennium or something. But actually, it's very important to understand what was happening then because, what actually happened is that the EU was in the process then of setting up an elaborate neo-colonial structure which basically controls Africa to this day. And now I mentioned that in the original treaty of Rome setting up the EEC back in 1957, they already had a formal relationship with past and present colonies in Africa which they recognized in that treaty. They call it a special relationship. And in the 1990s, some strange things started to happen. Which is that as the EU became activated and the Maastricht Treaty and the Eurozone, and it started becoming a reality, this thing that people have been talking about since the 1890s and before, It started becoming a reality in the 90s and immediately the cry went up to form an African union. And there was a strategy developed called the Joint EU Africa Strategy. And the motto of this EU Africa group was one Europe, one Africa. And what they wanted was a United Europe dealing one-on-one with the United Africa. So they wouldn't, that is so the European countries would not have to negotiate separately with each little country in Africa. They would have one authority controlling the entire continent with whom they could make their deals and their treaties, whatever those were. So interestingly, Muammar Gaddafi, the late dictator or president of Libya. He came out in, I forget what year it was. It could have been, it was around 19, in the late 1990s, I think. He made a very controversial speech in Libya where he said that the Arab Maghreb Union was a farce. That now the Maghreb is basically all of North Africa except Egypt. And in 1989, I think they had come together to form a regional economic structure called the Arab Maghreb Union. And Gaddafi had been one of the leading people pushing that. It was actually his brainchild, supposedly. But then, I think it was 15 years later, he gave this speech saying, let me tell you the truth. The reason we formed this Maghreb Union was because the EU forced us to do it. They said, we're not going to do business with you anymore because it's too burdensome dealing with each country unless you, unless all the Maghreb countries of North Africa come together in a union, we're not going to even talk to you. So on that basis, Gaddafi got up in circa 1989, and using the language of third world-ism and the non-aligned movement and Arab nationalism. Said that what we need to do is form this union so we can all be strong, all us Arab-speaking countries in Africa together. But then 15 years later, he openly and publicly confessed actually the EU is the one who wanted us to get together, had nothing to do with Arab nationalism, and they basically forced us to do it. And so then he said, let's dissolve this union, let's get out of it. Oh, it was in 2003, I just remembered. It was in 2003, so this was post 9-1-1, it was after Afghanistan and Iraq had been invaded, so things weren't looking too good for Arab nationalism at that moment. And so Gaddafi, getting with the spirit of the time, said the Arabs are finished, they're a laughingstock, and we want nothing to do with Arabs anymore, even though we're Arab speaking. We are now African. And then he came up with a new idea. Let's have an African union, he said. Now, actually, he had already proposed the African Union. It came into being in the year 2000, and supposedly Gaddafi was the one who thought of it and was the founding father of this African Union. But, you know, in 2003, he confessed that the last time he pulled that manoeuvre with the Arab Maghreb Union, it was the EU forcing him to do it. Should we imagine that on the second go-round with the African, that he suddenly became the third world Nationalist that he always claimed to be or was he simply like Scarlett O'Hara and all those southern planters in the United States in the antebellum South, was he simply, lining his own pockets by doing business with the colonizers and going where he thought the power was. Well, it looks like the latter. And that's how colonial elites work. You know, people are not that idealistic, unfortunately. I wish they were, but let's face it, they're not. You know, people will go where the money is, and that's just how it is. And so they formed this African Union to the cries from the EU of one Europe, one Africa, And they started signing all kinds of treaties and putting forth all kinds of policies that were completely mysterious and unknown to the African people who have enough of a struggle trying to get democratic government as it is. But now all of a sudden, whatever democratic structures had been set up at a national level in the individual countries had suddenly become obsolete because now the EU was talking directly to these officials in charge of this thing called the African Union. And the African Union was empowered to make treaties that could be enforced on all African countries. Imagine that. So, now that we've had the African Union since the year 2000. And one of its rules, supposedly, is that you're supposed to have free elections which are monitored by international authorities and absolutely no military coups. Military coups are strictly not allowed. And yet, since then, we've had the Arab Spring. These colour revolutions and civil wars in the Western powers, and now we're having these, continuing to have these coups, which everybody is cheering about on Twitter. All of this is supposedly, supposed to be impossible and illegal under the African Union and should trigger military interventions by the African Union. I think they call it the African Union Peace and Security, something or other, which basically mobilizes peacekeeping troops and also arranges to have European troops to come in, in order to fix problems, whatever they are. And so the mechanism actually exists in Africa probably better than anywhere else in the world where you have a transnational authority, the African Union, which actually has the real power and the real willingness to bring in heavy military force whenever they like, to stop things like military coups from happening, and yet they're still happening. Why is that? Why is that? I'll pick up on one thing as we finish. Realizing the Gaddafi started African Union changes my whole concept of it. That blows me away. But the fact that when you look at the EU, the EU, European Union, has been hugely successful at control within Europe economically. There are lots of questions that the EU has never been able to rise above and be a economic bloc, I guess, to rival the US, which was always the dream, probably, of the EU and the European Economic Community before that. But it's full control of EU members and if the EU can punish and has done with those in Eastern Europe for many violations on tax, on faith, on immigration. But the African Union, you don't hear of it as having that much say or power. It hasn't brought together those countries. Can we just finish just maybe touching on that, that kind of comparison between one bloc in Europe that has worked certainly for control, the African Union, is that by design or are there other reasons behind that? Well, I think it's by design that the African Union is weak. Is that what you're saying? That it really doesn't exercise the authority it's supposed to. I think it's by design. I think it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to create a central authority for European powers, especially Great Britain, which really masterminded the whole thing, in my opinion. And if you, I would just like to leave your audience with one point, which, is that article you showed by Andrew Roberts, where he said it's time to to recolonize Africa. That was in 2005. That was right after Tony Blair had done his African, Africa commission and they had mapped out this whole plan for basically re-colonizing Africa through the African Union and through other regional structures. Now in that article, Andrews actually says, he actually states that the French and the Germans will not be allowed to re-colonize Africa, that only English speaking countries. He actually says the United States and Great Britain, and with the support of New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, will be the ones to make this happen. The French, because of their cruelty in the past and their mishandling of all kinds of colonial situations, will not be allowed to have anything to do with it, nor will the Germans, because look what they did when they were colonialists back before World War I. You think 2005 was a long, long time ago, but he, Roberts actually evoked what the Germans did before World War I as a reason why they will not be allowed to take part in this great project of colonizing Africa. So now all of a sudden we're getting all this propaganda from Giorgia Meloni of Italy and from big influencers like Ian Miles Cheong. I don't mean to single him out, but he wrote this extraordinary tweet saying, yes, the people of West Africa are rising up against French colonialism. We're going towards a multipolar world. Hooray. Some words to that effect. He linked it to the whole idea of multi-polarism. And what is that all about? That's about overthrowing the global hegemon, the USA, which is supposedly the cause of all evil in the world. Overthrowing the USA, stripping us of our power, so then power can be decentralized among various countries. And so certain influencers such as Ian Miles Cheong is out there celebrating and saying, yes, out with the French, out with the French. Is it just a coincidence that Andrew Roberts, when he first publicized this recolonization plan, he expressly said the French are out. We will not allow the French to take part in this now, all of a sudden, so many years later we're hearing that cry again that the French are out. And some of these French countries, French colonies, so-called, one of them Guinea, maybe on another, we don't have time to talk about it now, but I have massive evidence that the British are really effectively in control in that country, Guinea, and running things in an extraordinary way, quite openly, including Rio Tinto, the mining company, the Anglo-Australian mining company, and Guinea has more than one half of the world's bauxite deposits, aluminium ore. And Rio Tinto has been trying to get in control of that, working with the Chinese. And it's interesting that, you know, the cry goes out, you know, from all the usual sources, the US State Department and what have you, oh the Chinese are taking over in Africa, that's one of the reasons why we have to go back in there and otherwise the Chinese are going to take over everything. But I notice whenever the British get involved with something, they somehow bring the Chinese with them. I'm not sure why they do that, but it's a little strange, what can I say? Well, we'll leave it on a cliff-hanger, that, about the British involvement there, and we'll pick up on that. Richard, I really do appreciate coming on. As I said at the beginning, I love reading your tweets and how you expand on so much. So thank you for joining us today and going through that Africa tweet, which is one of your latest ones. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Peter. Always a pleasure.

Ospite della settimana: Leila Belhadj Mohamed Contributo audio: Antonella Napolitano Due anni fa il governo britannico ha deciso di iniziare a sorvegliare i migranti rilasciati dalla detenzione amministrativa con dei braccialetti applicati alle loro caviglie. Doveva essere solo una sperimentazione, ma non è andata così. I braccialetti hanno un sistema Gps collegato al Ministero dell'interno britannico e servono per sorvegliare ogni loro spostamento 24 ore su 24. Secondo il governo il braccialetto serve a scoraggiare che siano commessi dei crimini. Ma in realtà si tratta di una violazione totale dei diritti di queste persone, tanto che molte ong e associazioni hanno protestato duramente. I contributi audio di questa puntata sono tratti da un video pubblicato sul canale YouTube di di Bail for Immigration Detainees BID il 10 maggio 2023 https://www.biduk.org/pages/watch-the-films, da un vidio pubblicato sul canale YouTube di infoPłockTV il 22 giugno 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7yKiGkgcsM&ab_channel=infoP%C5%82ockTV, da un video pubblicato sul The Guardian all'interno dell'articolo 'Upskill or sink': Clare O'Neil outlines changes to Australia's migration policy il 27 aprile 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2023/apr/27/upskill-or-sink-clare-oneil-outlines-changes-to-australias-migration-policy-video. Le fonti degli articoli citati nella puntata sono le seguenti: Who profits from the UK's 24/7 tracking of migrants?, Privacy International, 5 maggio 2023, https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/5063/who-profits-uks-247-tracking-migrants; The human cost of AI in EU-Africa's migration surveillance, EUobserver, 12 luglio 2023, https://euobserver.com/opinion/157253; Turkey ‘forcibly deports 170 refugees to Syria': reports, The New Arab, 16 luglio 2023, https://www.newarab.com/news/turkey-forcibly-deports-170-refugees-syria-reports; UK plans GPS tracking of potential deportees by fingerprint scanners, The Guardian, 13 gennaio 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/13/potential-deportees-fingerprint-scanners-gps-tracking-home-office-plans; Cosa vuol dire normalizzare un regime. Il caso di Assad, LifeGate, 28 giugno 2023, https://www.lifegate.it/normalizzazione-regime-bashar-al-assad; Poland Doesn't Want Migrants, but These Foreign Workers Are Welcome, The New York Times, 15 giugno 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/15/world/europe/poland-migrant-workers-immigration.html; 'Upskill or sink': Clare O'Neil outlines changes to Australia's migration policy, The Guardian, 27 aprile 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2023/apr/27/upskill-or-sink-clare-oneil-outlines-changes-to-australias-migration-policy-video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This series of podcast-interviews gives researchers from all over Europe a voice. We exchange views from different countries, talk about background specifics, and try to give an honest assessment of the state of the EU. In this episode we learn from António Raimundo about the specific situation in Portugal, the fact that in contrast to other European countries populism does not play a major role in Portugal, about the way the European integration is viewed in Portugal, and about the way the role of the so-called “smaller countries” within in the EU is evolving. António Raimundo is a Research Fellow at the Research Centre in Political Science of University of Minho. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Masters in European Politics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Recently he completed a postdoc on the Europeanization of Portuguese foreign policy and was part of the European research project “EU Foreign Policy Facing New Realities”. He has been Guest Lecturer in several Portuguese universities and has contributed to the “Yearbook of European Integration” of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) as national expert on Portugal. His research has covered topics such as European integration, Europeanization, Portugal's European and foreign policy, Brexit and EU-Africa relations. Among other outlets, he has published in the Journal of European Integration, Journal of Contemporary European Studies and European Politics and Society. Notes: When debating the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, António at one point talks about "moving towards unanimity“, when he actually meant moving towards majority voting. The book António Raimundo mentioned is the Oxford Handbook of Portuguese Politics: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-portuguese-politics-9780192855404?cc=de&lang=en& Moderation: Felix Heidenreich (IZKT) A project produced in cooperation with the Public Library of Stuttgart and Stiftung Geißstraße Stuttgart.

A year ago, AU and EU held their sixth summit, in Brussels. Whereas the sentiments afterwards were optimistic on the EU-side – mainly because it had rolled out their Global Gateway initiative to be financed with 150 billion €, Africans were disappointed: Europe had made promises, as always, but discussions were still not on an equal level, issues like migration, Covid 19, and even security had been put aside. The summit results were immediately overshadowed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, whose spill over effects continue to affect EU-Africa relations. The war has devastating effects on food and fuel security across Africa, deepening existing food crisis, driving millions more into poverty, triggering protests and political instability across the continent and increasing the risk of long-lasting armed conflicts, in the Sahel. Africans view EU sanctions on Russia as exacerbating Africa´s food security and economic problems. EU funding for Ukraine fuel concerns that financial promises made to African countries may no longer hold. Georg Lennkh will discuss with Philomena Apiko and Franz Schmidjell about the economic, social and political impact of the war in Ukraine on African countries, on EU- Africa relations and about what this means for Europe. Philomena Apiko, Head of the EU – AU Department at the Centre for Africa – Europe relations. She specialises in AU-EU relations, AU reforms, trade and regional integration, gender, governance, democracy and human rights, and international law and justice. Franz Schmidjell, Deputy Director of Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation VIDC Moderation: Georg Lennkh, Ambassador ret., former Special Representative for Africa of the Austrian Government, Member of the Board of Bruno Kreisky Forum

This week, EURACTIV's agrifood team talks you through what happened in last week's meeting of EU leaders, which had a strong emphasis on food security, we hear from a tour guide on the island of Sardinia about the role prisoners played, and continue to play, in its agricultural sector, and we take a closer look at honey and the sad reality for beekeepers dealing with a changing climate.

The EU's chief says Europe is Africa's most reliable partner. But after decades of neglect, can it fill the void as China steps back and Russia looks to extend its influence? Macron has long called for a reset of this relationship, as far back as 2017 - when he declared the end of ‘Francafrique'. Is this more rhetoric and is it time for Africa to stop asking for European aid? Guests: Gyude Moore Center for Global Development Geert Laporte Director of the European Think Tanks Group Alex Vines Director of Africa Programme at Chatham House

This week, EURACTIV's agrifood team explores what the EU-Africa summit holds for the agrifood sector, we are joined by Brendan Coolsaet, associate professor of environmental politics at the European school of political and social Sciences at Lille Catholic University, to talk about what he learned in his trip around Italy visiting farms, and, in honour of the fact that Valentine's Day coincided with the EU-AU summit this week, we bring you some fun facts about chocolate.

In this week's ConsEUmer episode:

My guest is Toni Haastrup, a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her research broadly explores the nature of global power hierarchies in knowledge and practice between the Global North and South. She has researched topics such as the African Union, EU relations with Africa, feminist foreign policy, and the women, peace and security agenda. I discuss most of these issues with her in this episode. You can follow Toni on Twitter at @ToniHaastrup.

CGD's Mikaela Gavas joins Gyude to discuss barriers to private investment in health and infrastructure projects and how a new initiative—an Accelerator Hub—could help local businesses and institutions in Africa develop financially viable proposals and connect them with investors.

Nigeria and other countries in Africa offer enormous opportunities if they embark on green growth which is investing in climate-smart crops to build more resilient food systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, and energy transition. The African Development Bank in an optimistic note of enormous opportunities inherent in green growth in Africa's recovery pathway from its first recession in 25 years, energy, agriculture, and infrastructure are key areas of investment potential for a post-Covid-19 recovery in Africa.AfDB President, Akinwumi Adesina says with abundant solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal energy resources, Africa's energy transition alone presents a $100 billion per year investment opportunity. He says Agriculture potentially offers massive investments in climate-smart crops to build more resilient food systems and climate-resilient infrastructure offers investment potential of between $130 billion and $170 billion.

Many songbirds are migratory, and they are in a serious conservation trouble! Here we show from a recent publication by Walther and Huettmann (2021) how those trends in the Old World and its African fllyways and wintering grounds can be modeled with Open Access GIS layers and machine learning, how they relate to recent habitat factors over time, and where the trends and hotspots in Africa are predicted to go in the near future for species that are in 'large decline', 'moderate decline' and 'not declining'. This work presents a grim case for flyway managment achievements, lack there of for 1970-1990, and the still ongoing decay along the flyway while the human crisis in those regions is currently accelarating, including warfare, poverty, oil development and mining, human migrants and climate change. One must probably find that this a surprising conclusion considering that so much migratory bird (banding) research has been ongoing, e.g. in former colonial countries, but then it has not really put those topics on the agenda, communicated it in the scientific bird literature, or improved habitat-related questions last 100 years. It seems to present a typical case of Bandura's (2007) argument while conservation is time-critical. Citations (in reverse order to match podcast content) Walther B.A. and F. Huettmann (2021) Palearctic passerine migrant declines in African wintering grounds in the Anthropocene (1970–1990 and near future): A conservation assessment using publicly available GIS predictors and machine learning. Science of the Total Enviroment Feb 27;777:146093. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146093. Kronenberg J., E. Andersson and P. Tryjanowski. (2017) Connecting the social and the ecological in the focal species concept: case study of White Stork. Nature Conservation 22: 79–105. Berthold P. (2003) Changes in the breeding bird fauna of two southern rural communities during recent decades-lost paradises ? J Ornithol 144:385–410. Bandura A. (2007) Impeding ecological sustainability through selective moral disengagement. Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development 2: 8-35. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/falk-huettmann/support

In this episode, Garrison is joined by returning guest Pedro Sousa from Portugal. After reviewing some of the significance and history of the role, the two discuss Portugal's priorities and outlook as it serves as rotating President of the Council of the European Union from January to June of 2021. In particular, they discuss Portugal's response to the pandemic both nationally and in the Presidency role, as well as the focus on an equitable economic recovery and long term resilience framework (contending with debt vs state aid), coinciding with an emphasis on the EU social summit in May. Further topics include the focus of Portugal on EU-Africa relations in advance of this summer's EU-Africa Summit; Portugal's focus on connecting NATO and the EU in political-security relationship in light of reset transatlantic relations with the advent of the Biden administration in the US; and the role of Portugal in a world of China tensions with Europe and the West. Pedro Ponte e Sousa is a professor of International Relations at the Universidade Portucalense in Porto, and a researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI-NOVA). Garrison Moratto is the founder and host of The New Diplomatist Podcast; he holds a M.S. of International Relations as well as a B.S. in Government: Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) from Liberty University in the United States. All guest opinions are their own and not that of The New Diplomatist podcast formally. Please subscribe and leave a review for feedback; join the podcast on Patreon for bonus perks. Follow The New Diplomatist on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for listening. (Originally recorded February 18, 2021)

Today on The Leaders' Brief - The COVID pandemic has thwarted the EU's plans to renegotiate trade relations with Africa, intending to change the trade narrative from donor to equal partner. Brussels aims to revisit the plan in December as the world continues to hope for a coronavirus vaccine before mid-2021. Intending to create 10 million jobs by 2023, the European Union had guaranteed $5.3 billion for public and private partnership projects in Africa.  President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court has sparked some controversy ahead of the US presidential elections in November. The primary concern raised by the Democrats is that the US President should have waited till after elections to nominate a successor for the late Ruth Badger Ginsburg as it otherwise undermines a democratic selection to the country's judiciary. China, which is being brutally hit by a US-launched trade war and warming up to countries in West Asia and Africa, recently decided to put monitoring laws on technological content it exports. China's new export control law aims to protect its national security by regulating the export of what it considers "sensitive materials."  About egomonk: Website | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedInegomonk is a global intelligence platform delivering asymmetric outcomes by bringing organizations closer to the communities they want to serve and the leaders they wish to influence. If you wish to collaborate with us then email us at contact@egomonk.com.

As the world enters further into the 21st Century, now faced with the unprecedented advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, EU-Africa relations continue to evolve steadily, with both sides addressing key complementary priorities, such as trade and investment, sustainable development, job creation, industrialisation, peace and security, and migration.In order to achieve “A Stronger Europe in the World”, the European Commission identified the development of a new strategy with Africa as a key priority, by “working hand in hand with our neighbours and partners”. With the conclusion of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement on the horizon, this partnership is of increased importance.In recent EU negotiations, a clear shift in narrative from “development” to “fostering partnerships” is apparent – as seen during the 10th African Union - European Commission meeting in Ethiopia early this year. This shift is also central to the aspirations of the African Union, such as Agenda 2063. In late 2020, Brussels will host the 6th AU-EU Summit. This meeting will take place at a time when Africa’s economic growth continues to increase, estimated to have reached 3.4% in 2019Botswana’s sound macroeconomic policies, its legal and regulatory frameworks, and strong economic and political institutions make the country a safe and desirable investment destination. With growing infrastructure development and geographically in a central location, Botswana is seen by some as the gateway to doing business in the region, and a credible entry point to access the entire continent. President Mokgweetsi E. K. Masisi, in his 2019 State of the Nation Address, welcomed “sustainable and impactful investment” as a top priority of his Government and committed to transform the country from an upper middle-income country to a high-income country, through the implementation of its blueprint Vision 2036.

What’s the EU’s offer to Africa? No region is more vulnerable to current global challenges than Africa, with negative spill-overs for the EU. Simultaneously, Africa offers opportunities for investment and trade – a fact well recognised by other global actors. What can the EU’s new leadership offer Africa? And what does Africa expect from its neighbour? During this interactive session, we will discuss how innovations in migration, finance, trade and global health can take the EU-Africa relationship to a new level.

The 3D-printing sector has proven its commercial viability in recent years, reaching the high street and, indeed, many homes. The technology is already used in some medical domains such as dentistry and prosthetics, and many scientists are now exploring methods of printing biological materials. Even if reports about lifesaving 3D-printed hearts are certainly premature, the technology has several medical applications.Source: © European Union - EP

Antony Otieno Ong'ayo presents an alternative approach to the management of migration in the context of EU–Africa migration relations The effects of contemporary migration dynamics within and from Africa to Europe increasingly translate into cross border challenges facing the European Union. The socio-economic and political factors shaped by the processes of globalisation continue to generate different dimensions of migration in Africa. These dynamics have become major policy challenges in the management of migration and leveraging migration of development. Current policy initiatives are informed by top-down approaches that attach different opportunities and restrictions to them through categorisations such as irregular migrants, asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers, illegal migrants, skilled migrants, highly-skilled migrants, second generation and return migrants. However, these approaches do not take into account the agentic responsibility of African migrants and the communities that they have established in the respective destinations countries to manage themselves. Moreover, they fail to address return decisions and constraints to circularity as experienced by African migrants who may consider going back. Drawing on the experience of sub-Saharan African migrants in the Netherlands, this paper presents an alternative approach to the management of migration in the context of EU–Africa migration relations. It starts from the premise that the experiences and leadership of migrant communities in host countries are vital for a bottom-up driven approach to ‘managed migration’. Tapping into diaspora agency, structures of leadership, consultation and decision-making within the African communities provides new approaches to circular migration that translates into a triple-win situation.

For ECDPM's latest podcast, Anna Knoll discussed the upcoming Valletta Summit on migration in November 2015. Anna discusses European Union (EU) policy on migration and development, and the EU-Africa dialogue on migration and mobility. In particular, Anna looks at the challenges for the EU's “Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa" Find out more at ecdpm.org/dossiers/migration/ Music courtesy of Podington Bear (licensed under Creative Commons) Image courtesy of Gustave Deghilage via Flickr (licensed under Creative Commons)

Will 2014 be a turning point in Africa-EU relations? Over the next seven weeks ECDPM will share its thoughts on the major challenges ahead in 2014 for Africa - EU relations. With a specific thematic approach each week, our programmes will analyse and evaluate the progress that can be made in the coming year, and what obstacles may lay ahead for policy makers as they work towards effective international development cooperation. The next few years will be crucial in shaping EU-Africa relations. What will be on the minds of the leaders from across Africa, the EU institutions and its member states as they converge on Brussels in April 2014 for the Africa-EU summit? What are the challenges for Africa and the EU in 2014 as they work toward sustainable growth and development in an era of economic transformation and instability? ECDPM’s annual Challenges Paper seeks to identify important debates that can be expected in the coming year and beyond and to sketch the backdrop against which these will unfold. The aim is not to predict outcomes, but to situate debates that concern Africa-EU relations so as to facilitate as wide a stakeholder engagement as possible. http://www.ecdpm-talkingpoints.org/challenges-in-2014-will-it-be-a-turning-point-in-africa-eu-relations/ Music: Radiohem by Podington Bear

A short podcast from ECDPM with views from our experts on cooperation between Europe and Africa. With Dr. James Mackie, Isabelle Ramdoo, Andrew Sherriff and Faten Aggard. Visit http://www.ecdpm-talkingpoints.org