Africa-Europe Cooperation Revisited

Nearly 60 years after the Yaoundé Conventions (Cameroon), cooperation between Africa and Europe, which formally began at the institutional level of the Africa-European Union in the 1950s, is being renewed in 2022 under the banner of “two unions, one common vision” around a partnership of solidarity, security, peace, economic development, and sustainable prosperity. But when analysing this evolution, at least two questions need to be asked: what are the chances that this time, this partnership between Africans and Europeans will be more like a “win–win” partnership? What are the untapped possibilities for optimising cooperation and achieving mutually beneficial common goals? In this paper, we explore different aspects of economic relations, but especially trade relations, in an attempt to offer a new perspective for the development of cooperation between Africa and Europe. Methodologically, our approach encompasses a historical overview of trade in goods in the period 2002–2021 in the context, however, of a contemporary reading of the challenges and opportunities for the development of this Euro-African partnership.