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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The European Union and South Africa: Towards a Strategic Partnership? |
Author: | Olivier, Gerrit |
Year: | 2006 |
Periodical: | South African Journal of International Affairs |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 175-187 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | foreign policy international relations European Union Economics and Trade Politics and Government |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220460609556810 |
Abstract: | After the failure to secure its future by way of a new constitution, the EU had to find new ways to resuscitate the Union. It has now concluded that forming a strategic alliance with South Africa, a State with which it already has solid relations, would facilitate the achievement of its goals, not only in Africa but also globally. EU policy towards South Africa has included rigid, self-interested trade policies alongside morally inspired, altruistic development aid and humanitarian assistance programmes. The discernable impact of its Official Direct Assistance (ODA) policies on South Africa's progress towards sustained development, modernization, social reconstruction and stable democracy is so far negligible in comparison to the government's own efforts. More than a decade after full relations were restored between South Africa and the EU, the European Commission proposed the creation of a 'strategic partnership'. South Africa's preliminary reaction to this proposal was positive, but guarded. In conclusion, the author contemplates on South Africa's deliberations on the proposed strategic partnership and the EU's rather clumsy tactics in presenting the proposal. Ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |