Date: 28/09/2010
Source: The Presidency
Title: SA: Zuma: Speech by the President of South Africa, at the third South Africa - European Union Summit, Brussels

Thank you very much Presidents Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso. I am delighted to be here with you today.

Our meeting today was historic as we met for the first time under the auspices of the European Union's Lisbon treaty.

We welcome the fact that in President Van Rompuy, we have a permanent partner leading and guiding the European Union, instead of the pre-Lisbon treaty six months rotation.

We are convinced, Mr President, that under your stewardship, and together with President Barroso, we have both continuity and consistency in our relations with the European Union.

We will be able to take our partnership to deeper levels.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have just witnessed the signing of the South Africa-European Union Primary Education Sector Policy Support Programme. This signifies the single largest ever development cooperation programme between South Africa and the European Union, and we welcome the fact that the focus is on our apex priority, education.

Our discussions today built solidly on the outcomes of our discussions from the last Summit that we hosted in Kleinmond, South Africa almost a year ago.

The detail of our discussions is contained in the joint statement, but I would like to briefly touch on some of the salient outcomes:

We are pleased that the number of established dialogue forums have continued to grow. They will soon include very important priority areas for us such as education and training, employment, and social affairs and crime and justice to the already impressive list of areas we cooperate on.

Given the strategic nature of the SA-EU partnership, and the increasing economic, cultural and people-to-people relations between the parties, we have proposed to the European Union a reciprocal visa waiver agreement initially for diplomatic and official passport holders.

Globally, we agreed to cooperate in facing challenges on all on issues of development and peace and security.

In this regard we engaged in an open discussion on the EU-SADC economic partnership agreement negotiations.

I am very pleased that we share the objective to conclude, by the end of the year, a final agreement that will enhance trade and economic relations between the European Union and the Southern African Development Community-economic partnership agreements (SADC-EPA) countries, and which supports development and regional integration in Southern Africa.

We emphasised the importance of an effective multilateral system and multilateral institutions, especially in pursuit of cooperation on development, peace and security, human rights and democracy.

We committed to working together ahead of the sixteenth Conference of the Parties convention on climate change in Mexico.

We spoke about our shared commitment to support the achievement of the millennium development goals by 2015.

On global and regional issues we discussed developments in Africa, including Zimbabwe and Sudan.

We also discussed the forthcoming third Africa-European Union Summit in Libya in November 2010, which we see as a unique opportunity to take stock of the achievements of the partnership, and to reaffirm our commitment to it.

I can say with confidence that we are very pleased with the content and depth of our discussions.

Today's meeting has helped to further consolidate our continued dialogue and engagement with the European Union.

I thank you.