site.btaSolomon Passy: EU’s Absence in Africa Is Critical Mistake

The absence of the European Union (EU) from Africa is a critical mistake, Solomon Passy, founder and president of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria, said at the opening of the conference “The Sahel, Russia and the Balkans - Strategic Interests and Challenges” on Wednesday.

Africa, perhaps, is the biggest and most important missing topic in the Bulgarian public debate on foreign affairs and security, Passy pointed out. In 1964, Europe had twice the population of Africa. In 1993, the populations were equal. In 2020, Africa had twice the population of Europe. In 2037, we expect Africa to have three times the population of Europe, and in 2047, four times the population, said Passy. Thus, the largest group of young people in the world will soon be Africans, added Passy.

According to him, we can expect about 1.5 billion people to decide to migrate to Europe. “It will be an avalanche, a tsunami that will have no stopping, Passy noted. These people will not migrate to Russia, China, North Korea, Belarus or Iran. These countries will try - and they are already doing this - to use this avalanche of migrants as a weapon against the EU. That is why the presence of China and Russia in Africa is extremely dangerous in the long term. The absence of the EU from Africa is a critical mistake,” Solomon Passy explained.

With the development of technological advances, wars are no longer fought only with weapons, said Dimitar Marinov from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on behalf of Minister Georg Georgiev. Disinformation, propaganda, economic and political infiltration, as well as the use of private military structures, are becoming major instruments of influence, he added.

For a very long time Western Europe thought that Africa was too far away to worry about, but since the migration started, we know that was wrong, said political analyst and media expert Christoph Plate, director of the Media Programme for Southeast Europe of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. “It is high time we drew attention to some of the challenges there because there are many links to South-East Europe, he added. This forum is organized to broaden our perspectives and look beyond our geographical region,” Plate told the conference.

The forum brings together security and policy experts from Africa and Southeast Europe to discuss the geopolitical, economic and humanitarian challenges in the Sahel region and their implications for Europe, organizers said. Key topics will include the expansion of Russian military and political influence in the Sahel, the role of media in the region and the effects of Russian propaganda, NATO and EU engagement in Africa and the Balkans, information manipulation, disinformation, security concerns and lessons learned.