Peace process: Can Berlin, Paris reset EU-Ethiopia ties?

Chrispin Mwakideu

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s visit to Ethiopia on Thursday and Friday comes as the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) implement a peace deal signed in November to end two years of brutal war. Baerbock is accompanied by her French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, who issued a statement on January 5 saying the trip would underscore their support for the peace deal brokered by the African Union. The Tigray conflict began in November 2020 after TPLF fighters attacked a military base in the north of Ethiopia, prompting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to declare war on the TPLF.

Subsequent fighting — which expanded to include militias from the Amhara region and soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, who supported the Ethiopian National Defense Force — killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions of others.

The Ethiopian government then imposed a blockade on Tigray, which cut off telecommunications and hindered the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Since the peace accord was signed in November, the blockade has been lifted, aid is finally flowing and even the national air carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, has resumed domestic flights to Tigray.

“They [Baerbock and Colonna] want to make sure that the peace talks that resulted in the signing of the cessation of hostilities between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front would work and to make sure that arrangement would bring lasting peace to Ethiopia,” Mengistu Assefa, a political analyst and commentator in Addis Ababa, told DW.

The European Union is one of the African Union’s biggest donors. However, Ethiopia did not invite the EU to the peace talks, which resulted in the signing of the agreement in Pretoria, South Africa. According to some observers, that decision led to some discontent in Brussels.

“All relationships of EU member states [with Ethiopia] have been difficult during the conflict in Tigray in the last two years,” said Annette Weber, the EU special representative to the Horn of Africa.

“But the German relationships have been very long-standing, very reliable relations that have been profound,” she told DW. “And what we see right now is warming up again after the peace agreement was signed.”

Relations between the European Union and Ethiopia declined after the Tigray civil war broke out, Mengistu said.

“The European Union was critical of the Ethiopian government, especially on how it handled the civil war due to reports of violations of human rights law,” said Mengistu. “That led to cuts in development assistance to the Ethiopian government.”

Now that the peace agreement is holding so far, there has been an improvement in relations between Addis Ababa and Brussels. “That’s likely to continue if there is progress in the peace process with gradual reinstatement of development financing,” said William Davison, senior analyst for Ethiopia at the International Crisis Group.

“The major issue here is the positioning of the major European Union member states, particularly France and Germany, which at times have taken a somewhat softer line on the [Ethiopian] federal government than the EU institutions themselves,” he said.

This article was provided by Deutsche Welle