Conferência do Ministro de Estado e dos Negócios Estrangeiros na Universidade de Nairobi: «Portugal, charneira entre Europa e África»

«Europe and Africa are close neighbours. Both continents share the same geography, the same security context and complementary challenges when it comes to migration. Over the last few years, the European perspective on the extent of its Southern Neighbourhood has evolved in the right direction: Europe is now well aware that its vicinity goes far beyond Northern Africa, encompassing the Sahel region, the Horn of Africa and even Central Africa.

But Europe and Africa are not just neighbours. The European Union (EU) is Africa’s main trading partner, as well as the largest provider of development aid to Africa. Since 2000, the EU and Africa hold periodic summits, and since 2007 we have a Joint Strategy. The EU is increasing the cooperation with multilateral African organizations, at continental level with the African Union (AU), and at sub-regional level.

We speak more and more of partnership. And this word must be taken seriously. The paradigm of development aid – the simplistic paradigm of an asymmetrical relationship between donor-countries and recipient-countries – is no longer valid: we are in a relationship between equals and we must understand it as such, building our partnership based on that premise. A partnership consisting of economic cooperation, trade flows and job-creation through investment. This is the spirit of the 2017 Abidjan Declaration, and we must make it a reality».

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