By Maniraguha Ferdinand
South African Minister for Foreign Affairs, Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor has said that Africa must to stop to waste time in long discussions with Europe that don’t produce good results.
She emphasized that Africans need to be more content oriented while dealing with Europe, than it is now.
Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor revealed this on 26th October 2021 at the sidelines of AU-EU ministerial meeting in Kigali, Rwanda.
Talking to Pan African Visions, Pandor said that Africa must engage whith Europe while prepared.
“European Union is a very important economic partner of the African continent, and so this is a valuable opportunity for Africa to specify its development objectives and to ensure that those objectives and priorities are supported appropriately by the European Union”, she said
“So this gives us a chance as Africa to state what we want to see and to ensure that, in fact, the initiatives are in accord with what we want to see happen”, she added.
Pandor said that she is not satisfied with the status of Africa-Europe relations now, because it doesn’t solve the very problems that the continent faces.
“I can’t be satisfied because Africa remains poor, our people are in poverty. We don’t have sufficient infrastructure. Our young people don’t have enterprises; they don’t have jobs until those things have changed. I cannot be satisfied”, she said.
Meetings and long discussions, Pandor says will lead Africa nowhere, what is needed is “to be more content oriented. We must be more concrete in terms of what we want to see and we shouldn’t have general discussions. We don’t have time. Our people are just poor. Our condition is not good, so we can’t only have nice conferences.”
Europe is one great African trade partner. According to European Commission, in 2020 EU exported in Africa 124 million Euros worth goods, against 101 million Euros worth goods imported.
