On the day he participated in the emergency summit of the League of Arab States on Gaza in Cairo, António Costa met on the sidelines of the meeting with President João Lourenço, who has been assuming the rotating presidency of the AU for about three weeks.
Speaking to journalists in the Egyptian capital, the President of the European Council pointed out: "In addition to bilateral issues, we can also see relations between the European Union and the African Union, which I hope that now, during this year of Angola's [AU] Presidency, can become even closer."
The statements come after the President of the Republic assumed the rotating presidency of the AU in mid-February at a meeting of heads of state and government of the African Union in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
João Lourenço replaced the outgoing AU chair, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, who had assumed the presidency of the African bloc in February 2024. In his inauguration speech, President João Lourenço expressed his determination to promote continental unity and socio-economic progress.
João Lourenço had already said that political instability, wars and terrorism are phenomena that hinder the socioeconomic development of Africa, ensuring dialogue for the pacification of the continent during the Angolan presidency of the AU.
As Europe's closest neighbour, Africa is a geopolitical priority for the EU, which is why the European bloc is a key partner in the fields of energy, peace and security, ecological transition, trade and investment, as well as digital transformation.
In 2022, trade in goods and services between the European Union and African countries totaled 504.3 billion euros.
After the last EU-AU summit was held in mid-2022 in Brussels, a new one is expected this year in an African country, on a date and location yet to be defined.
On Tuesday, still on the sidelines of the emergency summit of the League of Arab States on Gaza, António Costa also told journalists, in statements in Portuguese: "We see it as very positive that there is this initiative for a concrete reconstruction project that respects the rights of the Palestinian people and in which we will be very committed."
"This is an essential step to ensure what is the lasting solution for peace in the region, which is a solution that allows us to have two states, in which Palestine and Israel can live in peace and friendship," he said.
Participating in this summit on Gaza on behalf of the EU, António Costa also had another bilateral meeting this Tuesday, with the interim President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
On Monday evening, the President of the European Council met with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and at that meeting António Costa expressed his concern about the humanitarian and security situation in Gaza and said he hoped that the ceasefire talks would resume, moving on to the second phase.
It was expected that this Tuesday, at the high-level summit, an Arab plan for Gaza would be presented and that this would then be presented to Europe and the United States, and that Egypt would also announce a donor conference for reconstruction, under the auspices of the United Nations, to be held in March.
