Juncker's full 2018 State of the Union speech

12 September 2018. Annual State of the EU address by President Juncker at the European Parliament

To speak of the future, one must speak of Africa – Europe's twin continent.

• Africa is the future: By 2050, Africa's population will number 2.5 billion. One in four people on earth will be African.
• We need to invest more in our relationship with the nations of this great and noble continent. 
• And we have to stop seeing this relationship through the sole prism of development aid. Such an approach is beyond inadequate, humiliatingly so.
• Africa does not need charity, it needs true and fair partnerships. And Europe needs this partnership just as much.

In preparing my speech today, I spoke to my African friends, notably Paul Kagame, the Chairperson of the African Union. We agreed that donor-recipient relations are a thing of the past. We agreed that reciprocal commitments are the way forward.

We want to build a new partnership with Africa.

• Today, we are proposing a new Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs between Europe and Africa. This Alliance – as we envision it – would help create up to 10 million jobs in Africa in the next 5 years alone.
• We want to create a framework that brings more private investment to Africa. We are not starting from scratch: our External Investment Plan, launched two years ago, will mobilise over €44 billion in both the public and private investment. Alone the projects already in the pipeline will unlock €24 billion
• We want to focus our investment where it matters the most. By 2020, the EU will have supported 35,000 African students and researchers with our Erasmus programme. By 2027, this figure should reach 105,000.
• Trade between Africa and Europe is not insignificant. 36% of Africa's trade is with the European Union. This compares to 16% for China and 6% for the United States. But this is not enough.
• I believe we should develop the numerous European-African trade agreements into a continent-to-continent free trade agreement, as an economic partnership between equals.