During a conference-debate, organized by the association ”Les Amis du Maroc” and the Embassy of the Kingdom in Belgium around the theme ”And if the future of Europe passed through the South?”, this ”necessary re-establishment” of Europe’s relations with its southern neighborhood according to new parameters was the common thread of the discussions which saw the participation in particular of the Moroccan ambassador to Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Mohamed Ameur, of several Belgian and Moroccan personalities from the worlds of politics, culture, associative action and research.
For Louis Michel, Belgian Minister of State and former Member of the European Parliament, “if Europe wants to save its DNA, it must change its paradigm, particularly in its relationship with the South.”
“Europeans are called upon to reflect on a new approach to designing their relations with Africa, to reach a certain political consensus on the idea of the junction between Africa and Europe, to outline a model that incorporates both the economic and the human,” he stressed.
According to him, “there are certainly different readings, expressions and perceptions, but the humanist values are the same.”
The best way to change the paradigm, Mr. Michel argued, would be to “negotiate an association and free trade agreement that would include all of Europe and all of Africa,” adding that “this would create an extraordinary community rich in human resources, raw materials, education, culture, knowledge and languages.”
However, a free trade area only makes sense if it is accompanied by freedom of movement, he noted, believing that this freedom “would remove this kind of migration problem which is being exploited in a sordid way and which risks posing an extremely serious danger to what makes Europe great and its values”.
“Since all the migratory recipes have failed so far, is it not appropriate today to change our approach?” he asked, insisting on the imperative of achieving “partnership maturity”, win-win agreements, which are “balanced and do not favor one to the detriment of the other.”
In the same vein, the economist and former Minister of Economy and Finance, Fathallah Oualalou, considered that the classic conventional partnership between Europe and Africa “seems to have reached its limits today”. Hence the importance, in his eyes, of emphasizing the challenges of today’s world to try to “lead a common reflection between Europeans and Africans, with the aim of building new software that takes into account the reality of a world in which the economy is driven by Asia, particularly China”.
“Europe can only impose its presence in Africa if it reconciles with this South that it has known and which is calling on it today to set up a new type of partnership based on co-production and co-development, with a view to managing together the constraints linked in particular to global warming, the health crisis, inequalities, poverty and security,” he said.
From there, Mr. Oualalou continued, it will be appropriate to develop regional value chains, which at the same time cross global value chains, but which have the particularity of taking into account neighborhood and proximity.
This new challenge will allow the Mediterranean to rehabilitate and refocus itself to become a new centre of a more shared, more balanced and more multipolar world, he argued.
“The future of Europe will only be built with the South if it becomes aware of current issues and manages to renew the Euro-African partnership,” he insisted, adding that Europe must take into account the changes that have occurred over the last thirty years (rise of China, US-China bipolarization, shocks linked to September 11, the economic crisis of 2008, the Arab Spring, the health crisis, the war in Ukraine).
And to continue that “Europe, which needs to think about the new world, seems to have become aware of the opportunities created by the latest shocks, notably on the imperative of autonomy and decoupling with China.”
“This awareness should lead to the establishment of new bases for digital, energy, human and cultural integration,” he said.
2024-08-20 09:54:29