CARE Affair #11 - Power

international arrest warrant exists
against Sudan’s president Omar
al-Bashir. The United Nations accuses
Eritrea’s dictator of crimes against
humanity.
Now the EU is making them
an offer they can’t refuse: the once
outlawed regimes can return to the
fold of the international community.
As an additional lure, both countries
are offered the chance of getting aid
funding.
The EU is applying leverage in
its negotiations in every case: Some
countries like Niger are so poor that
they can’t say no to the windfall from
Brussels. Others, like the island state
Cape Verde, one of the first to sign
many EU agreements, are so small
that they simply cannot say no to the
giant European Union. Others like
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous
country, are so big that the EU has to
make them a larger offer: Nigeria will
receive about 600 million euros. The
EU is buying Africa’s governments as
doorkeepers.
“Investing in young people for
a sustainable future” was the slogan
for the fifth EU-Africa summit that
took place in Ivory Coast in late
November 2017. It was intended to be
about young people in Africa and
their chances of building a future in
their home countries. But the true
situation of Africa’s young people was
shown in all the headlines and
international TV channels a few days
earlier: At a slave market in Libya, a
country torn by civil war, militias are
selling off young African men and
women like goods at dumping prices.
Photos prove the horror of this crime
against humanity. There was an
outcry in Africa; the reaction in
Europe was muted, almost indifferent.
Chancellor Merkel commented
bluntly: The images of the slave
auction in Libya have a “highly
emotional significance for Africans”.
This leads to a joint interest: namely
to stop illegal migration. This logic
sounds cynical.
The reaction came quickly:
The heads of state of Ruanda and
Nigeria announced simply that they
would send planes to Libya to free the
Africans – a gesture of solidarity, a
clever propaganda move against the
EU, the entity that is considered by
many Africans to be responsible for
this development.
The gulf between the EU and
its neighbouring continent could
hardly be deeper. And when observers
now say that the summit did not
achieve anything concrete, that is
only half true. The central result of
this round of negotiations is that
African and European interests are
diametrically opposed. As long as
they do not overlap there will be no
equal partnership. And until then, the
EU will continue to make efforts,
applying all its concentrated economic,
financial and even military power,
to force through its interests on the
African continent.
CARE affair N o. 11 — Power
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