The foreign ministers of the European Union are meeting in Toledo on the occasion of the informal meeting of the Spanish presidency of the Council. Led by the high representative, Josep Borrell, they will have two meetings. In the first one they will discuss the situation in Ukraine and Zelensky’s Foreign Minister will participate, Dmytro Kuleba. Next, the ministers will talk about the situation in El Sahel with the focus placed on self-criticism and assuming that part of the foreign policy strategy for Africa has failed.
This has been recognized in Borrell’s morning statements. “It cannot be said that the foreign policy of the European Union in Africa has been a success,” he said. “It is clear that things have not gone well“, he insisted. According to him, the fact that in recent years there have been coups d’état and that the Wagner group has advanced in the Sahel are proof that “it has not been a certainly successful action”. thoroughly review our policy [exterior en África]has concluded the high representative.
For this reason, this Thursday they are in Toledo, Omar Touray, President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Niger, hassoumi Massoudou, with whom they will discuss the specific situation in their country.
Military forces carried out a coup in Niger on July 26. Since then, both the president and his family have found themselves in a situation of house arrest, from which Albares has once again asked for his release. The European Union has aligned itself with ECOWAS and has shown its willingness to carry out actions to return democracy to the country. Although they have not specified if it will deal with economic sanctions or if they will support a military intervention after Burkina Faso has shown its willingness to send troops to the country. “The solution to their problems has to come from African institutions,” Borrell opined.
Europe had closed an aid package from 17 million of euros to collaborate with Niger. However, this shipment stopped once the coup d’état was known. The same thing happened with Spanish cooperation, which has stopped sending money. At the moment, they keep diplomatic channels open to try to return democracy to the country. Spain has its embassy operational and its officials working, although the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, reported that the four CNI agents they had on the ground have left the country.