James Warren
PRIME Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced on Monday that he is fighting to strengthen ties with the African continent with a new ‘Africa Strategy’.
The aim of the pact will be to increase the country’s economic influence in a host of African nations by 2023, thus expanding Spain’s global commercial footprint.
Sanchez hopes to increase relations with Africa in the hope that more and more Spanish businesses will expand onto the African continent.
In return, the PM has pledged to offer Spain’s support during G20 meetings to push for international debt relief.
The multi faceted plan also covers education, social improvements and security, with the bill pushing to entice more African students to study in Spanish universities under the European exchange student program Eurasmus.
The change student initiative is also hoped to improve outdated African social constructs by giving African female students and workers more of a say in their own future.
From a military point of view, Sanchez will send a naval warship to the Gulf of Guinea as part of bilateral security agreements with the EU to help fight piracy and increase protection for international sea freight.
This comes as the ‘gateway to Africa’ Morocco purchased its first Spanish warship in over four decades to help with the current migrant crisis.
We hope this years African Bill shows Spain’s ambition and wish to turn this decade into Spain’s decade in Africa,” Sanchez said. “We want to be a strategic partner in the continent.”
The bill will focus on three distinct areas, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa, but will overlap other significant states from a political and economic point of view including Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Read More:
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- Morocco’s PM says ‘time will come’ to ‘re-claim’ Spain’s two North African territories
