Megatrends Afrika: ECOWAS und AES zwischen Konfrontation und Kooperation

00:00:01: Look what's happening in Africa.

00:00:03: What do you say?

00:00:04: Africa will be a key partner

00:00:06: In building the world we want to live, whether it

00:00:09: is

00:00:09: on climate

00:00:10: digital

00:00:11: or trade.

00:00:12: The

00:00:12: very right To Be Human Is Denied Every Day To Hundreds Of Millions of People As A Result Of Poverty.

00:00:22: Our continent Will Continue

00:00:24: To Make Study Advances In Women's

00:00:26: Education And Equal

00:00:28: Access

00:00:28: To Services

00:00:29: thereby laying the foundation for more stable and peaceful societies.

00:00:39: Even if the current focus is on many others, Africa has become much more important not only for German foreign policy.

00:00:46: Developments like climate crisis and globalisation also make the digitalisation of the African continent a huge challenge because it often feels much more direct there as well as with its own motivations.

00:01:03: The Megatrans-Africa project lights up and analyzes these challenges which we will broadcast here in the SVP Podcast.

00:01:10: And today, let's take a look at West Africa.

00:01:14: In the beginning of this year, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger were from the local economic community ECOVAZ and founded their own alliance of the Sahel States, called AES.

00:01:26: That was the time when the security situation in the Sahela was tense as it is now.

00:01:30: Jihadist groups such as Janem, back to the capital and spread fear and fright.

00:01:35: And yet for a few months AIS and ECOWAS have been sending surprising signals of nutrition.

00:01:42: Today we ask whether this is the beginning of new pragmatism or it's only diplomatic cosmetics in terms of the so-called security situation.

00:01:50: I'll talk about that with Dr.

00:01:52: Franziska Elad Golov and Dr.

00:01:54: Dennis Thull.

00:01:55: You're both researching South Africa and the Sahel region.

00:01:58: Welcome!

00:01:59: Thank

00:02:00: you.

00:02:01: My name is Dominic Schottner, welcome to my side as well.

00:02:11: They have already mentioned it.

00:02:13: There was a whole series of clashes in the

00:02:22: city and you need to know that.

00:02:27: the West African state community has a democratic self-determination, so to speak, a regional association with fifteen states such as the EU or West Africa And they have a very strong rule of law to prevent constitutional changes.

00:02:48: And from this background, she reacted quite energetically to these pudges.

00:02:54: Twenty-one, twenty-two, thirty-three.

00:02:58: And these states with partial sanctions.

00:03:02: To force a transition back into constitutional order.

00:03:07: But that didn't go well at the end of it all.

00:03:11: There was rather... a boomerang effect of this trocholisse.

00:03:16: That does not mean that he hopes for results, but these three states have solidarized each other.

00:03:23: They have, so to speak, crossed over towards us by saying you did not help and fight terrorism as we follow legitimate political goals in the subject of terrorism, the sacred one, so-to-speak.

00:03:38: And this solidarity among the three didn't lead him to a turning point.

00:03:43: That's why I would say that Ecova has more problems than before today.

00:03:49: The whole thing also led to sanctions, especially because it probably even included the inner political popularity of the Putschists.

00:03:57: Because here a construction of the outside enemy has been added, so to speak.

00:04:03: We have to defend ourselves against the eco-vase and against the rest of the

00:04:08: world.".

00:04:08: That was partly very populist.

00:04:11: And at the end of day it is said that today the EcoVase is in front of the big problem because the tablecloth with which the state is cut is also having no influence on this situation there ...and naturally not any changes in behavior reached into these states either.

00:04:27: Freulat Golo, are these accusations of the three states to the ECOWAS from your point of view justified?

00:04:31: Well I think

00:04:32: you can say that in parts the accusations are justified or were.

00:04:37: You have to know that the ECowas is so set up by their structure that the Commission when compared with the EU has relatively little influence and for this the state and government bosses who come together into the ECWAS in the so-called authority very much influence.

00:04:54: That's something that happens in the eco-va always, what the most powerful state leaders want.

00:05:00: And of course this is done by the West African population now also over the three Sahel states and out on the impression that the eco was such a kind club which is heads off State.

00:05:10: What

00:05:11: are those?

00:05:12: Which ones are specifically

00:05:14: powerful?

00:05:14: I would call the Côte d'Ivoire Senegal certainly and especially Nigeria.

00:05:18: these are the strongest economy as well as the military strongest states.

00:05:22: Depending on the situation, there are probably also a few other vegans or those who are of course relevant.

00:05:27: But often it comes to people in the West African population already before decisions are made who are above all at the expense of this president.

00:05:38: And Dennis has already mentioned that the condemnation of these military punks was very strong, against which, for example, civil court breaks we have seen a lot in the region over the last ten years were not so intensively judged.

00:05:53: Kuti was an excellent example – the President changed the constitution to... Yes, you can discuss it but not rightfully.

00:06:00: Now in the meantime there is a fourth one to be effected.

00:06:02: To do that, the eco-vast then.

00:06:04: And of course people notice this and these popular immutants could use the rope very well for themselves.

00:06:09: But at the same time I also have to say ... Without this economic integration that Ecova has created, the individual states in the region would be much worse.

00:06:20: Especially the Sahel States are actually addicted to this economic community and you can see it quite well because most of the economic protocols of Ecovas continue today for the Sahela States even though they have been excluded since otherwise they could not live on at all.

00:06:35: They're within countries so they just need the economic relationships

00:06:40: around them.

00:06:40: So a little bit like Brexit?

00:06:42: situation EU, Great Britain in the farthest comparable.

00:06:46: You can probably say that and therefore I would also say what we see here is also a global trend that we are seeing in Europe as well which means more nationalism, more emphasis on national sovereignty, more populism And overall of course such an erosion liberal norms and less co-op readiness generally under legitimization crisis international organizations.

00:07:12: Yes,

00:07:13: then we will stay with him.

00:07:17: how has the security situation changed or did it change at all since these three countries have met to do something about

00:07:25: safety?

00:07:26: So in Sahel itself, if we start with that.

00:07:29: We had already talked about it a few months ago The situation has deteriorated further.

00:07:34: That means the Hunters have not been able to end the security crisis or also just turn around the trends that are being drawn here.

00:07:42: This is an expansion of the terrorist groups territorial military in every respect and we see It's clear that the majority of countries are controlling it.

00:07:56: But they've been adding, for two years now... ...to go from a country-like orientation to the city.

00:08:04: To the areas of entry into the capital.

00:08:09: In April we had a massive attack on the Jihadist groups in Bamako even before few weeks at Nihamé and Niger.

00:08:17: And those were really massive attacks and the structural trend is actually quite significant.

00:08:29: If you put this on Mali, Pimal Daumen might control the Malian government about forty percent of the national territory.

00:08:38: Of course we have to fight for that forty percent.

00:08:40: So the government that has taken

00:08:41: over the power to end this situation.

00:08:43: Exactly,

00:08:43: although that was probably hardly any longer than before.

00:08:50: but we can see the tendency of a Trump state and a Trumpian state.

00:08:56: The rest of the country is under control of foreign groups or just fighting or at least not without permanent state control.

00:09:06: And then, of course, this has an effect on the neighboring states.

00:09:09: And now we come to that topic about how the ecobas are affected by it and here you can also see clearly that the effects continue to be taken in order for me to expand the geodistical movement towards the south so they will work within the border areas especially manifest in Benin and Togo where there is really an escalation of the jihadist presence, military attacks, enormous military losses from national security forces.

00:09:39: And if you want to talk about an invasion here by a spillover... If I may say that again it also has political aspects because for example In Benin it came on December twenty-five into a military putsch.

00:09:55: So, now you can ask yourself the question whether this military was inspired by the Putschers in Sahel.

00:10:01: or was it just so much pressure through the Jihadist movement that, so to speak, took the dissatisfaction

00:10:10: within the military?

00:10:11: Ms.

00:10:11: Golo, there is the AIS,

00:10:13: i.e.,

00:10:13: three alliances and the EcoBars are no longer fighting together in terms of terrorism... ...or rather, they have to fight along with terrorism B. What does that mean for them?

00:10:24: We had already heard of this from Mr.

00:10:26: Tull.

00:10:26: To be honest, you have to

00:10:28: say that the Eco-Was as an organization has no particularly strong instruments for fighting terrorism effectively.

00:10:37: There is a peace and security architecture in this organization And it's now a problem that the instruments that belong to it, for example about crisis early recognition and strengthening of security sectors etc.

00:10:48: That they all no longer reach into the Sahel.

00:10:51: Of course this also leads to the influx in information between the Sahels and what is not so big anymore.

00:10:57: But I think the biggest problem is actually bilateral because it has just been said that pressure from the geodistical groups towards south but also towards west when you look at the Senegalese-Mauritan border now is high and bilateral cooperation, i.e.

00:11:13: the exchange of secretive information together with limited operations.

00:11:17: All this has been licked under this diplomatic break.

00:11:20: Very briefly you say licking?

00:11:21: That means it's not quite over yet but the lines are not covered so to

00:11:25: speak... It depends on individual cases.

00:11:27: however the lines have actually been covered and that even happens far away now for example in the case of Kuttywabukina Faso which is usually gendarmes and policemen who are arrested on the other side, because they are allegedly on the neighbouring territory.

00:11:44: And then there is hope of stabilisation attempts

00:11:47: etc.,

00:11:48: which leads to big diplomatic crises until you get this prisoner exchange.

00:11:53: So that's not just abusing but extremely counterproductive in view.

00:11:57: That's the question, what can you do about it?

00:12:00: The ECOWAS recently made a proposal to establish an anti-terrorist unit.

00:12:08: It should be a new unit of the so called STAND BYFORCE, that is, the military arm of the ECOWASS.

00:12:16: But this is extremely in children's shoes because they actually need very much political and also military means for this.

00:12:22: And now there are big questions whether we

00:12:27: will really see them in practice.

00:12:28: Is this somehow reflected on the other side of AES?

00:12:32: So do they have a group or cook where everyone starts, then who would also be counterproductive to their own soup in terms of terror fighting.

00:12:40: Officially, the IAS has developed a group called Unified Force.

00:12:45: That's about five thousand men in communication who are supposed to be working together.

00:12:51: How do you think that will actually happen?

00:12:55: There is a lot of question marks and there were private reports... that in this great offensive, which Dennis mentioned, also forces of the Unified Force have come into use.

00:13:05: But you can't say that these forces are now somehow formalized or operationalized so that they really make a decisive difference.

00:13:13: It may be more like solidarity gestures between those three states than actually military force.

00:13:19: But a gesture within the three states is not towards Ikowas?

00:13:22: Within

00:13:22: the Three States exactly!

00:13:23: Yes, within

00:13:24: the three states and in fact it is also very rudimentary.

00:13:29: And that has a very practical reason because all three countries are just under military enormous pressure.

00:13:34: they have no capacities or very little now so to speak but still go into the interstate cooperation.

00:13:40: They have enormous financial, logistical and personal interests.

00:13:49: In other words it's a politically-proclaimed project.

00:13:53: And you saw that with these attacks on Mali for example... ...there is very little support in the case of Burkina Faso or Nijer.

00:14:03: And

00:14:04: this anti terror unit from ECOVAS?

00:14:07: Is she then limited to the Ethereum of Ecovast member states or does it have any kind of supporting effect on others as a sign of goodwill?

00:14:17: So

00:14:17: at the moment, that's how it is.

00:14:22: That means they don't have a mandate to go into the territory of the other three quasi-Sahel states.

00:14:27: You can see that they don't exist yet, but it's a political idea.

00:14:32: But in terms of communication, the ECOWAS has already suggested that the three Sahel states should be associated with this.

00:14:40: That was just the formulation.

00:14:42: now... What exactly does that mean in practice?

00:14:45: It still needs to be studied.

00:14:46: And the big question is, do the AIS countries actually have an interest in it?

00:14:50: Because we see a lot of signals from the ECOVAS towards the AES that you are interested in dialogue.

00:15:00: That one also tries to keep things running at work level and doesn't get as much back out of the Aes.

00:15:06: so there seems not yet in the core interest of this dog being able to make a real curve towards

00:15:12: nutrition for the ecovase.

00:15:14: Well, I would say that you might have to use the image of a burning house where neighbors stand next door and say okay this house is burnt by neighbors.

00:15:25: What can we do now?

00:15:26: They try to address their neighbors saying hello here it burns

00:15:31: but they don't give them the garden hose.

00:15:32: And above

00:15:32: all these neighbors just say yes We can give up your help.

00:15:37: possibly you are also responsible for the fire in our house.

00:15:42: And that is, so to speak this political level where the mistrust, at least until today ... We may be in a break-up phase now.

00:15:50: maybe we will come again soon but up till date there's just this political mistrust and it isn't like a security policy problem But first of all a political problem that assumes that one comes into the security cooperation.

00:16:06: In such cases I am very skeptical.

00:16:09: Even if the eco was able to develop a doctrine and operating concept for such an attack group, that can mean very much.

00:16:17: If you only operate in a border area or something like this... And that then the AES countries will be eliminated, for example they would vote that ECOVAS soldiers go to their territory.

00:16:30: At the moment there is still a little bit of fantasy left.

00:16:32: But it was not

00:16:32: long ago before soldiers from other countries and also Germany started in the Aes countries at some point.

00:16:38: Is this sometimes now an issue?

00:16:39: That maybe you could have used them quite well for the fight against terrorism right now ?

00:16:46: That's what I'm

00:16:47: talking about!

00:16:48: You ask me !

00:16:50: We all say The situation was previously not brilliant.

00:16:54: It is also, constantly she has deteriorated.

00:16:55: That's part of the truth too.

00:16:58: The balance between international intervention in Mali wasn't good.

00:17:02: Today we know that probably even the anti-terror operation can still slow down this wave, so to speak if it now from the government, the Malian government.

00:17:14: You don't see any insight there, on the contrary.

00:17:18: Because they say that we do it differently and we are successful And then we also keep ourselves not necessarily to the facts but our discourse.

00:17:30: We have our nationalism against external interruption against pre-independence etc.

00:17:35: I think you

00:17:35: also

00:17:36: have to see that these three soldiers down there are actually standing with their backs on the wall.

00:17:40: They cannot, so to speak, avoid losing face from your position without losing sight of it .

00:17:46: You have thrown out the western partners with a big tam-tam and if they would now give themselves up for an actual dialogue course which is very publicly effective , i.e.

00:17:57: beyond, let's say, background diplomatic channels, then this would naturally be the whole right of production where she, Putsche aufgebaut haben ja erodieren.

00:18:07: And it is also astonishing that despite the degrading security situation, they still have a relevant backup in the population.

00:18:15: We know this from surveys and especially the Burkina B president Ibrahim Trauré who's such social media star as well.

00:18:23: He finds sound in the youth over these three cities.

00:18:26: So there are quite complex amounts of storage and indeed those three governments don't really have another chance than to say continue to implement their strategy and hope that they will come out alive and successful.

00:18:42: Now you

00:18:43: just talked about the backchannels, diplomaticals... But now there is... Do you read nutrition between AES and EcoVas?

00:18:52: Where exactly?

00:18:52: And who drives it then forward if actually have a completely different interest than what you just showed us?

00:18:56: So you have to

00:18:59: say that the ECOVAS Commission actually started out as the top political target of this three I.S.

00:19:05: countries in which the EECOVAS had.

00:19:07: I don't think it's realistic, but it was among the now distinguished committee presidents, so-to speak, the primate of the ECCOVAs policy and will probably also remain among the new Senegalese committee presidents.

00:19:19: And there is a lot on many levels trying to keep up with dialogue.

00:19:23: There are always exchanges at work level.

00:19:28: For example, they travel to work, to Abuja, Nigeria for the Ecovaas Commission and take part in workshops there.

00:19:33: And there is also an ecovaassonder group that leads dialogue.

00:19:38: I think it's relevant to the bilateral initiatives.

00:19:42: There have been some elections in this region, there are two years and nine presidents in Senegal, Benin has just been elected as well... ...and these younger personalities have a greater openness towards the Sahel States also out of pragmatism.

00:19:56: they simply need to find solutions for their countries now.

00:20:01: And here we see bilateral movements.

00:20:03: We've just seen between Benin and Niga that a border opening is being discussed but there are very clear economic advantages to open again.

00:20:11: And the things in motion, so that you can hope at least for specific local political problems find bilateral solutions.

00:20:23: But the movement

00:20:24: is going from ECOWAS towards AIS states and not vice versa?

00:20:29: Yes, you can say that the IS countries are sitting on the bar and waiting for the ECOVAS.

00:20:36: Not just the EECOVAS as well

00:20:39: but there

00:20:39: is also a fraction of them.

00:20:42: But they try to make the connection bilateral in shared roles so-to speak.

00:20:48: And I think the message here really is that the security policy costs... the situation for the equestrian countries is so high now.

00:20:56: And let's continue to take it that they don't come around, this step on the IS States.

00:21:03: All in all a kind of collective political coup d'etat.

00:21:06: you somehow try there.

00:21:09: Only he has up until I say everything yet not so much resonance found.

00:21:16: There are movements Partially, maybe between Niger and Benin for example.

00:21:23: There may also be contacts on the middle level as well... ...and attempts to make small solutions.

00:21:29: So how do you talk about it?

00:21:32: If there is any exchange of information if one knows that there's a jihadist faction in the border area.

00:21:40: You can probably imagine this.

00:21:43: But overall, the AES countries are still in such a position where they show themselves as relatively un-flexible for my taste or for my terms.

00:21:56: Still

00:22:00: in the lighting phase?

00:22:01: Yes!

00:22:01: And in this discourse of thinking and that doesn't necessarily make cooperation

00:22:10: easy Ms.

00:22:10: Goloz, you spoke to the new chairman of the Commission and now you're from Senegal?

00:22:17: Has he already taken over?

00:22:18: Exactly!

00:22:19: He has taken over at the beginning of July... Did something change

00:22:22: that?

00:22:22: You can hope it will

00:22:24: at least be fixed by dialogue.

00:22:27: So Senegal was actually one of the countries in the beginning dialogue course with the IAS at its strongest.

00:22:34: It also had to do there with a change in government.

00:22:37: The long-term president, Marky Sal, was one of the hardliners who then got rid off from very young presidents that started out for a dialogue.

00:22:47: And now where the chairman of the commission takes over, you can assume that this course will continue to be built.

00:22:54: The personality who takes over these positions is also a former general Biram Diop and it's a strategic choice of personality because obviously from military-to-military one hopes for communication to flow a little easier there as well which may look even cheaper in the so called authority.

00:23:14: There is now a new chairman, who is taking over the Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leon president.

00:23:21: BIO and he's also someone that wants to move forward with dialogue.

00:23:24: So from the side of ECOVAS are the structural softwares set up in order to continue on the agenda.

00:23:32: What about the economy?

00:23:33: ECOVA has started as an economic community through parallel to the European Union.

00:23:40: Could the pressure on this flank be large enough for these three states to say that it's not worth doing our own thing, but we're going back into the eco-vase?

00:23:49: No.

00:23:49: The eco-vaise has a lot of what is based on established principles and regulations which are still being billed by the AES state despite its withdrawal.

00:23:59: In addition there will also be an West African welfare community running in parallel.

00:24:05: There.

00:24:05: they are everywhere.

00:24:07: So much pragmatism, have you already?

00:24:09: A few refugees

00:24:10: are too big and I think both for the ecovase is a kind of concession.

00:24:17: We don't want to worry about further unrest For the IS countries.

00:24:21: it's like we take that with us.

00:24:24: They also, for example, always love to establish their own currency.

00:24:28: These are of course mammoth goals which probably aren´t realistic But who knows, maybe there's some movement in it.

00:24:38: We've already mentioned the example of Niger.

00:24:41: Interestingly enough, there is currently a strong alliance between Niger and North African neighbors Algeria now outside of the eco-war zone And that's why interesting because Algeria really has a very, very... from a male point of view A very problematic state actually was so to speak The idea We are making external politics out of a gap between us.

00:25:07: three.

00:25:08: And now there is energy policy, security policy, economic policy, an agreement between Niger and Algeria?

00:25:14: And then you can ask yourself the question where are national interests and will that not fall apart?

00:25:21: Then maybe constellations are conceivable in which so to speak this AIS construct is scattered or possibly more political flexibility will be set up.

00:25:33: Three constellations.

00:25:34: It's always difficult in politics.

00:25:36: Then let us continue to look north, finally at the European Union.

00:25:41: At one or another point.

00:25:41: we have already mentioned them But specifically after Berlin and Brussels Do you somehow have that on your screen?

00:25:49: Is it relevant or not?

00:25:51: I

00:25:52: would say that the Sahel politicians has a great value for places both in Brussels as well as also in Berlin Even if they may be not always so visible in public Because there are other topics that dominate Since the beginning of this Putsche, both in Brussels and Berlin.

00:26:09: Both were involved with big media and military and police presence in these countries.

00:26:15: And of course it was the exhibition of the AES for the normative size that the EU and Germany tried to transport into herberrückschlag.

00:26:23: And it's still the case that at least what the ECOWAS is involved in, there actually exists a tight commitment.

00:26:33: So financial means flow from the EU to the ECowas which are important for survival because otherwise the ECWAS would have enormous finances but even worse financial problems without this support.

00:26:43: The problem with ECOWAs is that the AIS states that ECOWASS has been too strongly western-oriented.

00:26:50: If not even westernly manipulated, so that the eco was of course now with great care tries to deal with her Western partners and therefore try a little more on with fingertips feel this partnership to design.

00:27:05: There is certainly also a certain lack of advice in Berlin and Brussels on how to deal with these Sahel regimes.

00:27:13: So there is an EU special envoy for the Sahel Joao Cravinho, who said that the EU position towards the transition was reasonably consistent – so sufficient consistency.

00:27:23: We already know this because even among the EU states the same transition does not always exist below this Sahel.

00:27:32: In this amount of time... You try to flank this dialogue somehow and hopefully bring the region back on a course where it is normative, also in your community ideas of regional integration, then Europe will return.

00:27:47: The relations between ECOWAS and AES – so a balance act between break and dialogue – explained exactly that.

00:27:54: Denis Tull and Franziska Illert-Gorlov thank you very much!

00:27:56: Thank you And

00:27:57: as always, thank you

00:27:59: very much to Maya Dänne who had the editorial for this episode.

00:28:01: If you want to continue reading into the topic then find some links in the description of the video on the subject and if you like or don't like this podcast then help us and others to find these content even better in your Podcast App.

00:28:17: I'm Dominik Schottner.

00:28:18: thanks a lot that you listened.

00:28:20: stay curious!