At the beginning of the year, the EU Commission presented a draft for a new EU-Africa strategy to be adopted at the EU-AU summit in autumn 2020. The Cotonou Treaty expires this year. Germany took over the EU Council Presidency on 1 July. The forthcoming reorganisation of European-African relations is becoming even more explosive due to the effects of the Corona crisis, the withdrawal of the US from Africa and China’s so-called mask diplomacy.

Will Europe and Africa succeed in breaking out of old patterns and establishing a substantially new partnership? How can innovative approaches of a green economy and the Green Deal become joint projects of Europeans and Africans? What are the new opportunities for German companies, for example in the field of hydrogen? Which impact  does the corona crisis have on European-African relations? Does it lead to more introspection or can it even contribute to a new beginning in relations?

These and other questions were the centre of the event Africa and Europe – Chance for a New Beginning?, to which the German Africa Foundation and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) invited. .