The EU will need to significantly improve its offer to the African continent if it is succeed in maintaining its position as its “first partner”, the EU’s chief diplomat said on Thursday (29 October).
Two in five UK adults say that the UK has more to lose than the EU if Brexit negotiations fail, compared to just a quarter who think the EU stands to lose more, according to a poll published on Wednesday (28 October).
A strategic partnership with Europe’s ‘sister continent’ was supposed to be this year’s prize. But the EU-African Union summit, originally due this week, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With plans for a new EU-Africa ‘partnership’ blueprint having been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic this year, 2021 should be “the Africa year for the European Union,” the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, said during the Socialist and Democrat group’s Africa Week.
African civil society groups want to be part of drawing up a new ‘strategic partnership’ between the EU and the African Union, in a bid to overhaul a process which many believe is deeply dysfunctional.
"Every day counts," the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters as he re-started face-to-face negotiations with UK counterpart David Frost in London on Thursday (22 October).
As policy-makers in Brussels and Addis Ababa plough ahead with plans for what is billed as an ambitious ‘strategic partnership’ between the EU and Africa, civil society groups complain that they have been repeatedly shut out from having any influence over EU-African relations.
The EU and African Union must use a new ‘strategic partnership’ to deepen their trade and investment relations, participants agreed during a EURACTIV event focusing on what is likely to emerge from discussions between the two blocs.
In a significant volte-face on Monday (19 October), EU and UK trade negotiators looked set to return to the table and resume talks on a post-Brexit trade deal, only a day after both sides appeared on the brink of abandoning the effort.
It was perhaps inevitable that after more than four years (longer if you include David Cameron’s ill-fated attempt to renegotiate the UK’s EU membership status), the Brexit process would end with one last Mexican stand-off. And so it goes that...
The United Kingdom appeared to be on the brink of walking away from talks on a trade deal with the EU after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday (16 October) that the EU had “abandoned the idea of a free trade deal.”
The prospects of an EU-UK trade deal being agreed imminently faded on Thursday (15 October) after EU leaders took an uncompromising approach on the progress of talks.
The UK economy’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic risks being derailed if it leaves the EU’s single market without a successor trade deal, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of strong EU-African relations, Iratxe García, the leader of the Socialist and Democrat group in the European Parliament, told EURACTIV as her political group launched its Africa week (13-15 October).
“My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!” So said Britain’s post-war Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin in 1951. Bevin, though not a Europhile, might well have been talking about freedom of movement across Europe, a cherished freedom currently on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last night the European Parliament delegation walked out of talks on the EU budget. Although the main dispute is over MEPs’ demands for extra cash for some projects, lawmakers and some EU governments also insist that there must be a strong link between the rule of law and the disbursement of EU funds.
EU nationals will not be able to travel to the UK using their identity cards from October 2021 under new measures announced by the UK government on Thursday (8 October).
If there was any doubt about the importance of a strong relationship between Africa and the European Union they have been dispelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, says Samuel Outlule, Botswana’s ambassador to the EU and Belgium.
It is "time for the UK to put its cards on the table" over a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, European Council President Charles Michel said on Wednesday (7 October) after a call with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The Cayman Islands was removed on Tuesday (6 October) from the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, prompting a swift backlash from civil society groups. Meanwhile, the EU added Barbados and Anguilla to the list because of tax transparency concerns.
Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday (3 October) tasked their negotiators with working “intensively” over the coming weeks to see if a post-Brexit EU-UK trade agreement can be obtained by the end of the month.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will speak by videoconference on Saturday (3 October) in an eleventh-hour bid to “intensify” talks on a post-Brexit trade agreement.
The European Commission launched on Thursday (1 October) the first step of legal proceedings against Boris Johnson’s government over its controversial Internal Market Bill that threatens to break the terms of the country’s Withdrawal Agreement.
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