01/07/2024
Can Africa really Unite? – Will Lessons from the EU apply now? -
As African heads of state and government meet with their European counterparts to discuss how to deepen relations between the two continents, they should heed the lessons of Europe's own past. Forging a united bloc takes time, and it starts with economic integration and strategic capacity-building.
When African Union members pledge to “continue to speak with one voice and act collectively to promote our common interests and positions in the international arena,” they recognize that this is not an easy feat. As with Rome, the “Africa we want” – the global powerhouse of the future – will not be built in a day. Convening for the European Union-African Union summit in Brussels two years ago, African and European leaders discussed how the partnership between their two unions can be both deepened and broadened. But when it comes to trade cooperation, the devil is in the details. The AU must heed the lessons (both the successes and the failures) of the EU’s own integration project. Only then can it build a strong foundation for a partnership of equals with Europe.
The EU is a globally recognized model of regional partnership and integration. Born from the ashes of war, suffering, and destruction, it used economic integration to create the conditions for lasting peace and security. It is now one of the world’s three largest trading powers, alongside China and the United States.
Africa is taking promising steps along the same path. There has been impressive progress in expanding its Regional Economic Communities (RECs) – country groupings designed to facilitate economic integration – and in January 2021, the African Continental Free Trade Area entered into force. The hope now is that the AfCFTA will help lift millions of Africans out of extreme poverty by boosting growth, creating jobs, and increasing incomes – all while spurring us toward even deeper integration.
The AU and the EU, both together and individually, must focus their efforts on the appropriate vehicles for attaining this goal. For its part, the AU will need to establish stronger institutions capable of nurturing economic growth and ensuring that its gains are widely shared. As recent coups in West Africa show, many African countries have a long way to go to establish good governance and thereby provide for their populations.
This is where the EU’s own past experiences (both the good and the bad) could prove useful, particularly when it comes to managing tensions between bilateral and multilateral initiatives. For example, the subsidiarity principle – whereby the EU takes charge of an issue only when supranational governance is clearly more effective than national, regional, or local governance – has served the EU well.
How might we in Africa use this principle to strengthen relationships between RECs? One promising model, epitomized by the pan-European venture that created Airbus, is projects that tap into common economic interests. African projects in this mold could mitigate vulnerabilities in the continent’s value chains and industrial capabilities – shortcomings that the pandemic highlighted.
African countries also can make better use of individual RECs’ competitive advantages to shape strategic programs to manufacture products that can be fully sourced and assembled on the continent. For example, an African electric vehicle program could rely on aluminum from Guinea, technical parts from Rwanda, and assembly processes in Kenya or Morocco.
Read the full story www.globalafricantimes.com
