More than two months after the agreement which ended the conflict, Catherine Colonna and Annalena Baerbock notably met the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
The heads of French and German diplomacy began a visit to Addis Ababa on Thursday, January 12 to support peace in the Tiger, more than two months after the agreement which ended the conflict in this region of the north of the ‘Ethiopia.
During this two -day visit, which occurs just after the Tiger rebels began to make their weapons heavy, Catherine Colonna and Annalena Baerbock must meet in particular the Ethiopian Prime Minister, the foreign ministers and the justice as well as representatives of the African Union (AU) and human rights defenders.
They also planned to visit a Distribution Center for the World Food Program (PAM) to see the implementation of a Ukrainian donation of 50,000 tonnes of wheat in Ethiopia and Somalia, of which Paris and Berlin have funded the routing up to 14 million euros each.
After two years of a fratricidal war which has moved more than two million Ethiopians and plunged hundreds of thousands of people in conditions close to famine, the objective of Paris and Berlin is “to support the process peace, “said M colonna on Twitter. The ministers are keen to carry the message of the European Union (EU), ready to re-engage in Ethiopia provided that the cease-fire is respected and that a transitional justice mechanism is put in place.
What about the withdrawal of the Eritrean army?
After the peace agreement, the routing of humanitarian aid has gradually resumed and the basic services (electricity, banking, transport, etc.) are slowly restored. But residents and humanitarian workers from various parts of the tiger recently told AFP that looting and persecution continued in the region.
Mainly unanswered question: the withdrawal of the Eritrean army which provided decisive assistance to the Ethiopian army during the conflict. This country which borders the northern border of the tiger was not present at the Pretoria discussions where the agreement of November 2, 2022 was signed.
Another point of tension: the part of the Western Tiger invaded by the forces of the neighboring Ethiopian region Amhara. Administratively attached to the tiger, this fertile zone is claimed as “ancestral land” by the nationalists Amhara who make it a casus belli.
a “strong symbolic marker”
The Horn of Africa and Ethiopia in particular are among the priority partners for the EU, while China advances its pawns in the region, as illustrated by the visit earlier this week at Addis- Abe of the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang. “We want to continue to strengthen the partnership between the African Union and Europe,” said M me baerbock, in a tweet.
This joint displacement of the two ministers is also a “strong symbolic marker”, before the celebrations on January 22 of the sixty years of the Elysée Treaty, sealing Franco-German reconciliation. This is not the first time that leaders of French and German diplomacy have made a joint visit abroad: there have already been many others, as in May 2016, where Jean-Marc Ayrault and Frank- Walter Steinmeier had gone together to the Sahel.