Ahead of the forthcoming African Union and European Union Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, 21 May 2025, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) have issued a joint statement today to call for “a renewed, just and people-centred partnership between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU)”. COMECE and SECAM express concern over recent shifts in EU-AU relations, which risk “sidelining the promotion of solidarity and of sustainable human development in favour of some narrowly defined economic and geopolitical interests”. “Africa does not need charity, nor does it need to be a battleground for external interests. What it needs is justice and a partnership grounded in mutual respect, environmental stewardship, and the centrality of human dignity”, the joint statement reads. COMECE and SECAM recognise the good intention and positive results of some EU projects promoting human development, while warning against initiatives that risk replicating extractive patterns of the past, privileging European corporate and strategic aims over the real needs and aspirations of African people.
The two organisations have already conveyed to European and African policy-makers the following four key messages: reorienting policies to protect African ecosystems and communities from exploitative practices; promoting agroecology, protecting farmer-managed seed systems and banning highly hazardous pesticides exported to Africa; putting an end to land grabbing and protecting communal tenure systems in respect of the sacredness of land; and supporting a vision of partnership grounded in the dignity of all people, mutual respect and integral ecology.