Portugal’s foreign minister: Europe and Africa must join forces to counter Indo-Pacific rise

4 months ago 15

Europe and Africa will only be relevant on the international stage if they join forces to balance the rising influence of the Indo-Pacific region, Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said on Monday.

“Europe and Africa will only be relevant in the global context, taking into account the shift towards the Indo-Pacific, if they act together and as equals; the real capacity to create another global centrality that is not just the Indo-Pacific is to make a clear alliance between Africa and Europe,” the government official said on the sidelines of the Eurafrican Forum in Lisbon.

The two continents “are on the same longitude, have the same time zone, have a similar geopolitical orientation, are united by natural geographical conditions that make their cooperation and collaboration the only platform for balancing the world’s relations, so that there is a multipolar theatre and not a unipolar scenario where there is only one theatre or one political centre for the whole world,” the foreign minister added.

“Almost all of the major threats and opportunities that Europe faces in the next century will require cooperation with Africa, and vice versa,” he stressed, pointing out that “the only way to gain influence on a global level is to work together, increasingly together and in tandem,” stressed Rangel.

Portugal, he continued, “is a natural gateway between Europe and Africa; it is therefore the Atlantic gateway, the gateway to Europe, geographically and historically”, in addition to the “shared history and cultural links”.

He concluded that this “common heritage can be an asset in strengthening ties and ensuring that Europe and Africa are not left behind, facing the future together.”

(Mário Baptista – edited by Pedro Sousa Carvalho | Lusa.pt)