EU-Africa Trade Arrangements at a Crossroads:  How to better promote development and intra-African trade

Conference language: English

The EU is Africa’s most important investor and trading partner but, in the sixty years of the post-colonial period, the role of Africa mainly as an exporter of commodities to the EU has remained constant. Unsurprisingly, the EU’s trade regulations and underlying incentives are repeatedly subject of criticism. One key to Africa’s economic development is the strengthening of intra-African trade. Great hopes are therefore placed in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is to come into force at the beginning of 2021.

But how do the EU’s trade policy approaches affect African efforts to deepen trade cooperation and to create regional value chains? From the perspective of African experts, how should the EU adjust its policy in order to promote the continent’s independent economic development? And from a European perspective: How does the entry into force of the AfCFTA change the European trade strategy towards Africa? These questions will be discussed at the sef: Policy Lunch.

Minister for Federal, European and International Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)