The European Union and Africa: Trade Liberalisation, Constructive Disengagement, and the Securitisation of Europe's External Frontiers

Abstract

During the past decade, a dramatic shift has brought to the fore Africa’s interactions with the global economy and the international system. Emerging countries and a number of corporate players have come to see the continent as a pioneering frontier. Along with the expansion of oil and gas production, 1 global demand for agricultural commodities and minerals has triggered an unprecedented improvement in the terms of trade and resources for African producers. The growth of opportunities for trade and investment is simultaneously being enhanced by the successful completion of debt-relief negotiations, resulting in a decline in the political and macro-economic conditionalities previously imposed by donors and international financial institutions. In many parts of the African continent, the rise of competition among or between old and new players is calling for comparisons with the ‘scramble for Africa’ that followed the Berlin conference of 1884-85. This article points to the flaws in such parallels through an analysis of recent trends in Africa-EU interactions. It is argued that European policies, while claiming to prioritise the continent, keep treating subSaharan Africa as an increasingly ‘distant abroad’. A good example of this trend is offered by the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and the resulting Action Plan, both formally adopted at the Second Europe-Africa summit in Lisbon in December 2007.