European Union – Participation by M. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne in the Fore…

The following items are on the agenda:

• The Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs: announced by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his state of the Union speech in September, the Alliance seeks to encourage employment in Africa by means of investment, with the target of creating 10 million jobs in five years. M. Lemoyne will lend France’s full support to this initiative and recall the importance of updating the partnership between the European Union and Africa, particularly in the framework of the future “post-Cotonou” agreement between the EU and the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. He will stress in particular the importance of enabling the least developed countries to benefit from investments as part of the Alliance and of stepping up our efforts in terms of education, mobility and the employment of young people in Africa.

• The future of the funding structure for sustainable development and neighbourliness: this point will allow an exchange of views on the EU’s external action for the 2021-2027 period and its financing. M. Lemoyne will recall our expectations about the EU’s future external instruments, particularly the priority to be given to Africa and the least developed countries and the need for an ambitious implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

• A lunch will be devoted to gender and development issues, subjects to which France is actively committed, with the two 2018 Nobel peace laureates, the Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and the Iraqi activist Nadia Murad, rewarded for their respective work on ending the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

During the visit, M. Lemoyne will have meetings with Mr Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, and with his German counterpart Mr Martin Jäger.