Round up
Ground prepared for South Africa-EU Summit
Ismail Farouk, GHB626GP, 2006.
Courtesy of .ZA - young art from South Africa, Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena.
New areas of cooperation and differences over future trade relations between South Africa and the European Union (EU) were top billing at the joint ministerial meeting between the two in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, on 3 June, ahead of the first ever South Africa-EU Summit in Bordeaux, France, on 25 July.
Co-chaired by South Africa’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Nkosawana Dlamni Zuma, and Dimitrij Rupel, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, political dialogue spanned Zimbabwe to the Middle East. Louis Michel, EU Development Commissioner and Jean-Christophe Belliard, personal envoy to Africa for the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), also took part.
South Africa is one of 79 members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group but has separate bi-lateral trade and aid relations with the EU. Both sides said they were committed to continue talks on a mutually beneficial agreement on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) – a free trade agreement – between the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the EU. However, South Africa raised the difficulties caused to its own regional integration agenda by the EU having initialled an ‘interim’ EPA with South Africa’s fellow Southern African Customs Union (SACU) members; Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. The EU said that talks with ACP countries who have initialled interim EPAs are expected to complete negotiations on full agreements by the end of 2008, to include other areas of trade such as services and procurement. South Africa reminded the EU that it is not bound by such a schedule since it has not initialled any interim agreement.
New areas of bilateral cooperation – peace and security, cooperation in environment, science and technology, customs, energy, migration and transport – were all expected to be on the Summit’s table.
