Africa against trade expansion

Muammar Gaddafi seeks compensation and contracts

A two-day summit meeting of 80 delegations from two parts of the world ended yesterday in Lisbon with the signing of the joint declaration “Strategic Partnership between the European Union and Africa”. The document provides for increasing economic cooperation between two continents - prosperous Europe and poor Africa.

There were some unpleasant surprises in Portugal. Yesterday, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade spoke out against trade agreements that “Europe is imposing on Africa.” He called on “all African countries from Morocco’s Casablanca to South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope” to demand “new negotiations with the EU.” And as a sign of protest he left the meeting room.

Many Africans believe that Europe, by expanding its exports to Africa as part of a free trade partnership, is destroying local markets and undermining national budgets, which are 30-70% funded by taxes and tariffs. It is quite clear that now, when the economic growth rate in Africa averages more than 5% per year, and taking into account its natural resources, the EU does not intend to lose ground and miss new opportunities on the Dark Continent. To reassure Africans, Lisbon announced that, starting in 2010, the EU will allocate 2 billion euros annually to Africa “to develop infrastructure and strengthen its trading capabilities.”

The topics raised in Portugal ranged from trade partnerships to pressing issues such as the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur province and human rights in Zimbabwe. In the absence of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who refused to attend the summit due to the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, he had to listen to the stern words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel: “The situation in Zimbabwe is damaging the image of all of Africa. The European Union has a common view of what is happening in your country.” But among African leaders there were also those who defended Mugabe.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (pictured) , who lived in his own tent rather than a hotel in Lisbon, criticized Europe and even suggested that “former European colonialists should pay compensation to the former colonial peoples they robbed for centuries.”

A number of African leaders took advantage of their visit to Portugal to expand bilateral ties with Europe. The same Gaddafi, for example, announced that he intends to invest $180 billion in the development of Libya by 2011. He will stay in Lisbon for another day and has already begun negotiations with Portuguese construction, energy and agricultural companies.

The Libyan leader will then head to France to sign major deals. We are talking about the purchase of Airbus airliners from the European concern Airbus for more than 3 billion euros, as well as the construction by the French of a nuclear reactor in Libya. To prepare these contracts, French President Nicolas Sarkozy hurried from Lisbon to Paris on Saturday.

Alexander ZDITOVETSKY, Lisbon