President Pedro Pires will participate in the African Union conference to take place between July 1 and 3 in Ghana and which will be used to debate a proposal for the creation of a continent-wide government. It has also been confirmed that Cape Verde is no longer in arrears with its payments to the African Union, after the Treasury managed to pay the organization’s annual fees.

The Cape Verdean head of state will attend the next African Union summit along with a delegation that will include Ministry of Foreign Affairs general secretary Severino Almeida.

According to one diplomatic source, Pedro Pires’ participation in the summit was made possible because the Treasury Department paid part of Cape Verde’s membership quotas, which were in arrears. The source declined to provide the exact sum, but it has been learned that five years’ worth of annual fees were paid.

The African Union summit, in addition to the debater on the creation of a continental government, is aimed at defining a clear position on the New Economic Policy for Africa expected to be integrated into the AU as an Agency for Development, as well as the election of the Union Commission’s president and vice-president.

Prime Minister José Maria Neves clearly expressed Cape Verde’s position on the possibility of a continent-wide African government in declarations made on Africa Day in late May, saying that it was still too early for the creation of a United States of Africa and that the current priority should be the consolidation of regional integration. In his words, “the path should be the creation of stronger national states and the adoption of criteria for convergence, similarly to what took place with Europe, as the total integration of the continent cannot begin from nothing.”

Source: A Semana