Sixth European Union - African Union Summit: A Joint Vision for 2030
We, the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) met on 17–18 February 2022 under the Co-Chairpersonship of H.E. Mr. Charles Michel, President of the European Council and H.E. Mr. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal and Chairperson of the African Union.
We recall the 5th AU-EU Summit held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on 29-30 November 2017 and the 2nd AU-EU Foreign Affairs Ministerial Meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda, on 25-26 October 2021.
Aware of unprecedented and mounting common challenges and opportunities, the leaders of the EU and AU commit to a Joint Vision for a renewed Partnership to build a common future, as closest partners and neighbours.
Two Unions, a joint vision. We agree that the aim of the Joint Vision is to consolidate a renewed Partnership for solidarity, security, peace and sustainable and sustained economic development and prosperity for our citizens and for our future generations, bringing together our people, regions and organisations.
This renewed Partnership will be founded on geography, acknowledgment of history, human ties, respect for sovereignty, mutual respect and accountability, shared values, equality between partners and reciprocal commitments.
It aims to be the driving force in promoting our common priorities, shared values, international law, and preserving together our interests and common public goods. This includes inter alia: the security and prosperity of our citizens, the protection of human rights for all, gender equality and women's empowerment in all spheres of life, respect for democratic principles, good governance and the rule of law, actions to preserve the climate, environment and biodiversity, sustainable and inclusive economic growth, the fight against inequalities, support for children’s rights, and the inclusion of women, young people and the most disadvantaged. We recognise the importance of food security and nutrition and welcome the AU Theme of the Year 2022.
A renewed Partnership. Our renewed Partnership addresses both the immediate opportunities and challenges, as well as the long-term possibilities offered by our partnership.
The immediate challenge is to ensure a fair and equitable access to vaccines. Together we will support local and regional mechanisms for procurement, as well as allocation and deployment of medical products. The EU reaffirms its commitment to provide at least 450 million of vaccine doses to Africa, in coordination with the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) platform, by mid-2022. Contributing to this and complementing the actions of the AVATT, Team Europe has provided more than USD 3 billion (i.e. the equivalent of 400 million vaccine doses) to the Covax Facility and to vaccination on the African continent.
Team Europe will mobilise EUR 425 million to ramp up the pace of vaccination, and in coordination with the Africa CDC, to support the efficient distribution of doses and the training of medical teams and the capacity of analysis and sequencing. We will also contribute in this context to the fight against health-related disinformation.
Learning from the current health crisis, we are committed to supporting the full-fledged African health sovereignty, in order for the continent to respond to future public health emergencies. To this end, we support a common agenda for manufacturing vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, therapeutics and health products in Africa, including investment in production capacities, voluntary technology transfers as well as strengthening of the regulatory framework to enable equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.
The African Union and the European Union underlined the urgency of the WTOs contribution to the fight against the pandemic and to the recovery of the global economy, and commit to engage constructively towards an agreement on a comprehensive WTO response to the pandemic, which includes trade related, as well as intellectual property related aspects.
In response to the macroeconomic effects of the Covid crisis on African economies, we support the Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative. We also call for ambitious voluntary contributions, by channelling part of the recently allocated Special Drawing Rights, in order to achieve the total global ambition of at least USD 100 billion liquidity support to countries most in need, of which a major part should benefit Africa. We welcome the USD 55 billion that have been pledged already from the new allocation of SDRs, of which several EU Member States (Team Europe) have so far pledged USD 13 billion and encourage more EU member states to consider contributing to this global effort. African institutions, in consultation with national authorities, will be involved in the use of these SDRs to support the continent’s recovery.
We will seek to ensure increased spending through international programmes in the fields of health, climate, biodiversity, education and security to facilitate economic recovery. We agree to examine lending instruments for sustainable investment projects in priority sectors. While enhancing our capacity to face these challenges, we agree that recovery investments should continue building resilience and more sustainable economies to achieve our long-term priorities.
We commit to combatting Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) and to addressing domestic tax base erosion, profit shifting (BEPS), and cooperate in tax transparency. In this regard, we agree to continue cooperating to develop and consolidate the strategic capability in the fight against different types of IFFs including money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and proliferation financing as well as those linked to fiscal governance systems and return of stolen funds and items from countries of origin.
Together, we will step up our support to scientific cooperation between researchers to develop knowledge together, as well as sharing technology and expertise, including through a joint AU-EU Innovation Agenda. We will encourage exchanges of young citizens, volunteers and students, through the expanded Erasmus+ programme and develop partnerships between universities, in order to improve our mutual understanding and foster excellence. We will strive to facilitate cultural exchanges and the movement of artists and artworks between our two continents, and encourage mutual undertaking for the restitution of cultural assets and promote access to and protection of cultural heritage.