Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will participate this week in Brussels in the sixth Summit between the European Union and the African Union, where he will co-chair a round table on peace and security inevitably marked by the debate on Mali and will coincide with the Prime Minister of Morocco, Aziz Akhannouch, in another round table on migration and mobility.
The leaders of the European Union and African Union and their Member States will meet in the EU capital on 17 and 18 February to lay the foundations for a new partnership between the EU and the AU, to launch an ambitious investment package in the face of climate change and the current health crisis, and to address the strengthening and renewal of the peace and security architecture. To this end, the Summit will consist of seven roundtables on financing for growth; health systems and vaccine production; agriculture and sustainable development; education, culture and vocational training, migration and mobility; private sector support and economic integration; peace, security and governance; and climate change, energy transition, digital issues and transport, in which EU and AU Heads of State or Government will participate alongside international experts.
Pedro Sánchez will co-chair, on Thursday afternoon, the roundtable on Peace, Security and Governance, together with the leaders of Mauritania and Ghana. The roundtable will also include the participation of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell; the President of the EU Peace and Security Council, the Egyptian Mohamed Omar Gad; and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
The aim of the roundtable is to address peace and security issues in the continent as a whole, which will inevitably include the current situation in Mali, especially after France threatened to withdraw its troops in that country in retaliation for the decision of the military coup junta to expel its ambassador in Bamako. The reason for the expulsion was “hostile and outrageous statements” by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in which he denounced the presence in Mali of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. The more than 5,000 French troops are integrated both in the European training mission EUTM Mali and in the Barkhane operation for the fight against terrorism and in the Takuba force, made up of special units from different European countries.
Precisely, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, will meet today in Paris the heads of state involved in Takuba to discuss the withdrawal of troops from Mali (more precisely, their redeployment in other neighboring countries). Spain has not been invited to this Paris meeting because it is not part of the mission. On the other hand, Spain is currently providing the largest contingent (500 troops, 24% of the total) of EUTM Mali, which is responsible for training the security forces of Mali, a key country in the fight against jihadist terrorism in the Sahel and northwest Africa. Spain has repeatedly insisted that any decision on this mission must be taken by the EU as a whole and has warned that a hasty withdrawal from Mali could degenerate into “another Afghanistan”, in addition to leaving an empty space that could be occupied by other powers, such as China or Russia, in this case through the Wagner Group.
First meeting with Aziz Akhannouch
On the other hand, Pedro Sánchez will participate on Friday morning in the round table on Education, Culture and Vocational Training, Migration and Mobility, which will be co-chaired by Austria and Portugal, on the European side, and by Morocco and Benin, on the African side.
This means that the President of the Government will have the opportunity to meet Aziz Akhannouch for the first time since his arrival as head of the Executive last October. This coincidence takes place, moreover, in the midst of the efforts of the Spanish Government to redirect its relations with Rabat, clearly deteriorated since May 2021 because of the reception in our country of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, and the pressures of Morocco for Spain to recognize its sovereignty over Western Sahara. Moncloa sources have not been able to specify the possible bilateral meetings of Pedro Sanchez in the margins of the EU-AU Summit, either with Akhannouch or with any other European or African leader.
