Ahead of the upcoming meeting of foreign ministers from the African Union and the European Union, COMECE and SECAM issue on Thursday, 15 May 2025, a joint statement calling for a renewed, just and people-centred partnership between the two regions. COMECE: “Africa does not need charity, nor does it need to be a battleground for external interests. What it needs is justice and a partnership grounded in mutual respect, environmental stewardship, and the centrality of human dignity”. Download the Statement
The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) issued the joint statement “For we know that things can change” ahead of the 3rd AU-EU Ministerial Meeting to be held in Brussels on Wednesday, 21 May 2025.
In their joint text, COMECE and SECAM called for a renewed, just and people-centred partnership between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU). Based on the daily grassroots experience of Christian communities across both continents, COMECE and SECAM express concern over recent shifts in EU-AU relations, which risk sidelining the promotion of solidarity and of sustainable human development in favour of some narrowly defined economic and geopolitical interests.
In this context, the two organisations conveyed to European and African policy-makers the following four key messages:
- reorienting policies to protect African ecosystems and communities from exploitative practices;
- promoting agroecology, protecting farmer-managed seed systems and banning highly hazardous pesticides exported to Africa;
- putting an end to land grabbing and protecting communal tenure systems in respect of the sacredness of land;
- supporting a vision of partnership grounded in the dignity of all people, mutual respect and integral ecology.
“Africa does not need charity, nor does it need to be a battleground for external interests. What it needs is justice and a partnership grounded in mutual respect, environmental stewardship, and the centrality of human dignity”, reads the joint statement.
COMECE and SECAM recognise the good intention and positive results of some EU projects promoting human development, while warning against initiatives that risk replicating extractive patterns of the past, privileging European corporate and strategic aims over the real needs and aspirations of African people.
This joint statement is the result of a fraternal collaboration between the two organisations representing Catholic Episcopates in the European Union and Africa. As SECAM and COMECE have already stated on the occasion of the 6th EU-AU Summit in February 2022, “Africa and Europe could become the engines for a reinvigoration of multilateral cooperation by reinforcing their longstanding ties marked by our common roots and geographical proximity […] towards an equitable and responsible partnership that puts the people at its centre”.
Download the COMECE-SECAM Statement
