Ethiopia: The Evolution of EU-Ethiopia Partnership

INTERVIEW

AllAfrica.com. Ambassador Hebberecht Chantal a Belgian national is the new Head of the European Union Mission to Ethiopia.

Before her assignment to replace the late head of mission to Ethiopian Ambassador Xavier Marchal, Ambassador Chantal served as head of mission to Kyrgyzstan. Before joining the EU, she served at the European Union Commission as head of the unit for Commission's Peace Facility - a funding instrument with a particular focus on food security issues.

Neamin Ashenafi of The Reporter sat down with the Ambassador to discuss the evolution of the longstanding partnership between the European Union and Ethiopia, the various development activities of the union support in Ethiopia and other political, economic and social issues. Excerpts:

The Reporter: How do you describe and assess the evolution of the relationship between Ethiopia and the European Union (EU) over the years and where is that relationship right now?

Ambassador Hebberecht Chantal: I think the partnership between EU and Ethiopia is a partnership that was forged a very long time ago, and we reinforce this partnership time and time again. For me, since 1975, when we first sent our delegation to Ethiopia, the evolution of our partnership has been quite positive from the side of both parties. On the development cooperation, for example, we are jointly working with government, and we have a financing agreement that we signed at Cotonou.

Since then, we have succeeded in committing all funds of the preview financial allocation and now we are embarking upon a new phase of the Cotonou Agreement. The new financial allocation for Ethiopia is an envelope package of 745 million Euros and it is the highest financial allocation ever made for development purposes for one African country.

We also have a political dialogue with the government, it includes our partnership political dialogue on human rights and the overall democratic process in the country. It is very important to have a frank and direct dialogue with the government on these issues.

We have also a very positive evolution on the economic side; since EU is the main export destination for Ethiopian export commodities, more or less 40 percent of Ethiopian exports come to Europe and member states of EU. On the other side, close to 20 percent of imports to Ethiopia originate from the same region. Year after year, EU member states are becoming more and more important trading partners to Ethiopia while Ethiopia becomes theirs.