Adesão à Europa e Política Europeia

EU and Africa: A Few Contentious Points on Security Policies, por Roland Marchal

The main debates nowadays focus on which regional organizations within the African continent to promote first, what agenda to push forward, which tools to build as to implement more efficiently and then what the consistency of this policy is, when considered with larger lens. Yet, this important but slightly technocratic discussion often is more complex for two reasons, which the present study tries to explore and articulate. On the one hand, EU policies towards Africa are not always what they are stated. Member States, competing agendas, relations with other international organizations, European public opinions move or reframe them in ways that more than often may appear debatable or unclear seen from Africa. On the other, African regional organizations have very diverse origins and, to a large extent, dealing with one does not help dealing with another. Thus, even though no one has articulated an alternative policy, one should be aware of the potential shortcomings of such a new security policy, which are also illustrated here.