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The AU Executive Council proposed a joint EU-Africa Council of Ministers to take place in Cairo at the end of November in order to prepare the Lisbon Summit and most likely approve the joint EU-Africa Strategy and examine the political declaration before it is submitted to the Heads of States and Governments. This meeting would take place in November just before the Summit. This proposal still needs to be discussed with the European Union. The EU-Africa Ministerial Troika (only assembling the two Commissions and respective Presidencies) planned to be held in Accra on 31 October will have already examined a very advanced version of the Strategy.  For all dates of the institutional negotiations, see the calendar.

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The AU Executive Council of 28-29 June asked the Chairperson of the African Union Commission and the President of Ghana, currently Chairperson of the African Union, to meet with President Barroso to share the concerns and difficulties of African Member States on EPA negotiations. The AU Executive Council reiterated its concerns on the slow progress of the negotiations of EPA development aspects and the impossibility of completing the EPA negotiation process by the end of 2007. The meeting would most likely take place in October before the joint EU-Africa Ministerial Troika and the future joint EU-Africa Strategy as well as the Lisbon Summit will certainly be a topic of discussion.

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The European Parliament have started to draft a report on the EU-Africa Strategy. A first discussion took place at the Development Committee of the European Parliament on 16 July. Read more.

Two days later, Joao Gomes Cravinho, Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, current President-in-Office of the EU Development Council attended the European Parliament’s Development Committee. Read more.

Maria Martens is a member of the European Parliament and their Committee on Development. VENRO, the Association of German Development NGOs, have interviewed her on her expectations on the EU-Africa Strategy.

Read the interview.

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On the 3rd and 4th June VENRO and Coordination Sud (France) organised the Civil Society Workshop “Building a strategic Partnership between Africa and Europe: The Challenge for Civil Society Organisations” in Bonn. The aim of the workshop was to formulate cornerstones for a more intensive partnership of Southern and Northern NGOs in order to influence political processes like the EU-Africa-Strategy.

Read more in VENRO’s newsletter.

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