Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
It was a very appropriate moment to meet because the current geopolitical context requires us to work more closely together. We remember that only a few days after the EU-Africa Summit in February, Russia started A war on European soil with disastrous consequences globally.In these turbulent times, the partnership between Africa and Europe is more important than ever.Today's meeting confirmed that we all remain strongly committed to this partnership.And that we stand ready to work more closely together to address the effects of war In remarks following the meeting on Monday evening and in the presence of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Fakih, von der Leyen said, "I want to highlight three issues among the many topics that were discussed. The first is food security. And everyone knows that Russia's war has a devastating effect on food security, and that affects every region in the world, and mostly also Africa very directly. We are taking several steps to mitigate the impact. We help bring grain from Ukraine to the world market. That is why in April we created priority routes across railways, roads and rivers: we call them Solidarity Corridors. More than 17 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products have so far been exported through these corridors of solidarity. We welcome that exports come primarily through the United Nations Grains Agreement. Therefore, we, as the European Union, are ready to mobilize more than 4.5 billion euros just for Africa until 2024, not only to provide immediate food aid, which is important now, but also to work on improving and increasing local food production using modern technologies. . So we are working - and it was very interesting to hear about the working session today, in this meeting - alongside our African partners to make food systems more resilient and more self-sufficient. Listening to the experts, I think there is huge potential to expand food production in Africa and, mostly, to get more processing into the continent so that there is added value to the product - from cashews to cocoa, there are many examples where this should be possible. And of course, the second important theme in the food security component is that we are investing in innovative agricultural processes, for example in next generation fertilizers. So we want to work together to find solutions here, to make fertilizers in Africa not only affordable but also affordable. There are many topics that we have touched on in the field of fertilizers, bottlenecks that we have to work on, and problems that we have solved. And with that experience, which is not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional, we agreed to launch a joint working group concerned with fertilizers, to face various challenges in the short and long term with regard to fertilizers.
The second big topic, of course, is the energy crisis. Russia's energy blackmail was an eye-opener for us, the European Union. We are not only diversifying our energy demand to reliable suppliers, but also significantly accelerating the transition to clean energy. And I think this is a defining moment where we can join forces. Africa has abundant resources of clean energy. The clean energy transition - if done right - can provide Africans with access to affordable, clean, homemade energy. This takes investment - and you can count on our support to make it happen. We are already mobilizing massive financing for energy projects, from solar to hydropower, to interconnections. But in addition, I believe that this energy transition may bring new economic opportunities to Africa because the world needs renewable energy, and Africa can become a major source of renewable energy to the world. We have already taken the first steps together by signing partnerships in the field of renewable energy, for example with Namibia, for example with Egypt on the sidelines of COP27. More will follow.
Third, we discussed implementing our common priorities. We do have a common agenda, which we agreed on last February at the African Union-EU summit. And we have a tool to implement it. This is our plan to invest in the global gateway to Africa, with a value of 150 billion euros. Here, it is our common approach to identify important mature projects. We are already partially implementing, with critical infrastructure projects. I already mentioned energy projects. Everyone knows our vaccine projects. The vaccine projects are impressive because they exemplify what we should collect in such investments: it is public money; It's private money; Technology has to go to the continent. And skills must be developed locally - this is very important. Of course, there is also a very important topic that is transportation. We recently opened a highway along the Northern Corridor in Kenya. Work will soon begin on submarine cables to digitally connect East and West Africa to Europe. These are many different examples but they illustrate the direction of travel. For these projects, we are ready to sign a new €750 million financing agreement on clean energy, strategic transport corridors and digitalisation.

My final conclusion is that we are implementing our agenda, despite the turbulent geopolitical situation that we see. And I think we can achieve more, because we share many goals, for example the necessary reforms in the WTO and the UN system or debt relief for vulnerable countries - you have our strong support Full. And of course the need to combat climate change. This is why I fully support Africa's ambition to play a stronger role in the multilateral system, including at the G20 and at the COP climate conferences. So you are right to insist on that. It's good that COP27 has taken a step towards climate justice, with losses and damages. You can count on the European Union to help make it work. And of course, in this context, we expect all major emitters to contribute to loss, damage and climate adaptation. We will continue to work on this and many other projects. I very much look forward to doing the assessment next time, when the African Union Commission visits Addis Ababa.