Today Commissioner Bankole and myself kick-started our strategic dialogue between the AU and the German Federal Office on Foreign and Security Policy.

To summarize: we share values, interests and objectives. Peace, security and prosperity are at the core of our interests. Our relations are of growing importance.

Let me make a few remarks:

1. Germany is proud to be the AU´s biggest bilateral partner. Since 2000, we have invested more than 1 billion EUR in “African led solutions” and have shown strong political support. We should not forget that this is German tax payers´ money as is a quarter of each Euro spent by the EU towards the AU.

2. Today we talked about global challenges. We can best tackle them together. This holds true for peace and security, but also for climate change, health, AI, cyber, trade and many other areas of our cooperation.

3. With Commissioner Bankole we discussed the very demanding current geopolitical situation:

The war in the Middle East and its implications for our economies. Russia´s war on aggression in Ukraine that has implications for the security in Europe and far beyond. On this my position is clear: Russia started this war 4 1/2 years ago without any acceptable justification. And it´s on Russia to end this war by showing willingness for meaningful negotiations. Ukraine is ready for this. And of course, we discussed the need for peaceful solutions to conflicts on the African Continent, such as Sudan, on which my government has organized a conference in Berlin in April. We also spoke about the conflicts in the Great Lakes and in Somalia. AUSSOM is the biggest mission of the AU and plays an important role. We also underlined the need to fight against transnational terrorism across the region.

4. Multilateralism is under attack. We emphasized our joint commitment to further promote multilateralism. This should include an adequate representation of African voices in international fora including in the UN Security Council.

The AU and Germany are bound by a partnership for more than two decades. I have invited Commissioner Bankole to continue our strategic dialogue on Foreign and Security Policy next year in Berlin to give it an annual basis.