European Union Pledges Partnership with Ethiopia

The European Union (EU) and Ethiopia have a strong partnership in development, trade, and investment and is ready to further strengthen, EU Head of Delegation to Ethiopia Ambassador Roland Kobia said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Ambassador Kobia said that the European Union and Ethiopia are bound together by history, culture, and people-to-people relations for centuries.

The existing cooperation is very strong and the EU member states are present here and are very active, he added.

The relationship between Ethiopia and the EU is not a donor recipient relationship, the ambassador said.

“It is real partnership that we are looking at; a partnership that covers political dynamics, but also development and social considerations,” he elaborated.

In addition to the support being provided by the European Union, member states are also developing huge efforts to help Ethiopia in a spirit of partnership.

The EU has been traditionally one of the very first partners to contribute not only for development aid, but also for trade and investments, Ambassador Kobia stated, adding “So I think it is important to acknowledge the sustainability and the coherence in our action over decades.”

According to him, the EU is engaged in human aspect projects mainly in social sectors including education and health.

He mentioned about the 9 billion Birr project agreement signed few weeks ago to support the education and health sector noting that the cooperation of EU and Ethiopia will further be strengthened in the future in various sectors.

“And in the next weeks, we will sign another about 9.5 to 10 billion Ethiopian Birr extra for these sectors also in water, IDPs but also to accompany enterprises. So social sectors is really the social fabric, which has a political element of reconciliation between the people is really a priority for the EU. We also had agriculture as another priority because Ethiopia is a farming country and we see all the efforts that are being done in Oromia and we are trying to help this within the overall context of the green deal or the climate change to help Ethiopia address the challenges that are coming,” Kobia pointed out.

Ethiopia benefits from the Everything But Arms (EBA), he stated, and said the EU has never suspended its preferential trade regime that it is offering to Ethiopia.

EBA is an initiative of the EU under which all imports to the EU from the Least Developed Countries are duty-free and quota-free, with the exception of armaments.

“If you put all this together, development aid, humanitarian aid, I should mention also trades, investments, loans that are the European Investment Bank is granted to Ethiopia and if you put everything of that in a package, you've got a massive support in our partnership with and for Ethiopia,” he stressed.

Source:
https://www.ena.et/web/eng/w/eng_2656953