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Europe must shed its colonial attitude to Africa: Brussels

Written by Administrator

Friday, 30 November 2007

Europeans must rid themselves of the notion that Africa is still their own private domain, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said Friday, a week ahead of a landmark EU-Africa summit.

"Too often still in Europe, Afro-pessimism dominates," Michel told a conference in Brussels.

"This perception of a problematic Africa is associated with a moralising charitable vision which acts like blinkers and hinders a different kind of thinking on Africa", he added.

On the other hand the attitude from the African side is much more affirmative, according to the commissioner.

"African leaders are becoming more and more critical of Europe's old-fashioned thinking and we must clearly understand that Africa is no longer Europe's private hunting ground," said Michel, in a reference to the continent's colonial past.

Switching from French to English he delivered his message in a nutshell; "Forget it!"

"Europe is not alone in Africa and it will never again be alone in Africa," he added.

He cited in particular the growing influence of emerging powers, notably China, as well as that of the United States.

China increasingly sees Africa as the land of new opportunity. Bilateral trade was 55.5 billion dollars last year, 10 times the volume of less than a decade ago.

The EU, Beijing's largest export market, ran a trade deficit of 128 billion euros (175 billion dollars) with China last year -- which is likely to balloon to 170 billion euros in 2007, according to EU statistics.

In order to embrace the new geopolitical order Europeans must effect a "strategic revolution" in their relation with their former colonies, said Michel.

The EU-Africa summit in Lisbon on December 8-9 would be the ideal place to establish a real "political partnership" so as to become players on "the great African chessboard," alongside Brazil, China, India and the United States said Michel.

"I think that a geopolitical, political and even economic alliance between Europe and Africa is written in the stars in future," he insisted.

"Imagine the power of that market ... imagine that alliance."

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