Romano Prodi has been dealing with Africa since he retired from the management of public affairs, he is one of its greatest connoisseurs and has led the UN commission of experts dedicated to the great continent. Interviewed by La Stampa, he launches his proposal to regulate migratory flows in the Mediterranean: “It's complex, but I know it's important to do it. Europe and China have convergent interests. A minimum of political intelligence is enough to understand that an orderly development of Africa would guarantee orderly migratory flows. This specific influence on governments should be watered down, indeed discolored, and replaced with a major Sino-European development plan".
Having an internationally shared plan remains essential to avoid procrastinating a situation at the limit: it is probably utopian to think of an agreement between Europe and China in Africa for the orderly management of migrations, but according to Prodi it is still necessary to start: "without the war in Libya nothing would scare me. Migrations have always existed. But this are not managed. All unmanaged things are scary. Gaddafi was a dictator, but agreements were made with him”.
For his part, President Xi Jiping believes that no one can emerge victorious from a trade war, above all because of the foundations that have been laid and Prodi continues “it's not that nobody wins, it's that everyone loses. According to last week's statistics, the mere threat of a trade war – which I hope will remain limited – has already caused the economy's growth rate to decrease”.
However, on the subject of international trade, despite the economic and political tensions raging in the North of the world, Africa has begun to take its first steps towards what we could define as the United States of Africa: last March, in fact, 27 African countries have signed a protocol that prepares the creation of a free trade area called AfCFTA, African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. The agreement commits the signatory countries to eliminating customs duties on imports and tariff barriers on 90% of goods traded by African countries and this free trade area, it is estimated, will affect 1,2 billion people and a GDP joint worth two trillion dollars a year.
“A prophetic policy is needed to imagine a Sino-European plan for Africa. We must understand that there is a wound in the world. And this wound is a danger to everyone. The whole planet should be interested in Africa”, concludes Prodi.
