Cooperation on migration, security and geopolitics were on the agenda of European Council president Charles Michel’s three-country tour of West Africa this week, as the former Belgian premier made a concerted effort to develop EU influence in the region.
Michel’s week-long trip which started in Senegal and Ivory Coast, will conclude in Benin on Friday with meetings with president Patrice Talon.
On Monday (22 April), Michel became the first European leader to visit president Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a 44-year old former tax inspector who won a surprise victory in presidential elections earlier this month, after running on a radical economic platform offering mass job creation for young Senegalese, tax rises for the wealthy and renegotiating contracts with foreign oil and gas giants.
“The timing was very judicious,” a senior EU official in Michel’s entourage told EUobserver, noting that president Faye, who was in detention until just weeks before the start of the election campaign, is “not particularly known in the West in indeed in the wider region.”
The two leaders held between four and five hours of “very detailed exchanges”, officials told EUobserver.
At a joint press conference with Michel on Monday, Faye called for a “rethought” partnership with the EU.
“European investors whose companies have recognised skills in these different sectors are welcome,” he added.
Benjamin Fox