Portugal wants to play a pivotal role in helping the EU understand developments on the African continent, particularly with regard to peace, security and stability, Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho told Lusa from the African Union summit in Addis Abada on Wednesday.
Together with Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Gomes Cravinho is representing Portugal at the African Union summit Wednesday.
Portugal is to take “this pivotal role”, which “is to help the European Union understand what is changing on the African continent and how best to adapt its approach to supporting peace, security and stability in Africa, which are of direct interest” to Brussels, Gomes Cravinho told Lusa.
We must “not forget that the flows of refugees and illegal migrants arriving in the European Union often arrive as a result of situations of war, of violence, which prevents them from continuing to live in their countries in Africa”, so “there is a direct interest” in the security of the continent, said Gomes Cravinho.
“We can see today that there is a certain urgency for Europeans and Africans to work together on various issues, particularly in the area of peace and security, the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahel, the Central African Republic, issues in which we are very involved and also very important here in the African Union,” the minister added.
Today, the African “security architecture” is “very fragile”, acknowledged the minister, who met with the African Union’s Peace and Security Commissioner Bankole Adeoye.
About the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, “where several African countries are involved,” Gomes Cravinho argued that the parties “sit here at the negotiating table to find peaceful solutions to the problems that oppose these countries, but are also of an internal nature”.
(Paulo Agostinho/Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
