The Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has observed that the seeming lack of interest in the affairs of Africa by Europe paved the way for Russia and China to increase their economic influence in the Region.

According to him, the socialist countries only take interest in the continent when the Western World, whom he describes as natural allies of Africa, decides to sit on the fence.

The Nsawam-Adoagyiri lawmaker made these assertions at the German-African Conference of Parliamentarians 2022, themed, “Africa and Europe in the Age of a New Geopolitical Rivalry and How to Improve the Bilateral Cooperation.”

“Right from the days of civilization, our first point of call was to gravitate towards the liberals. So Europe particularly, Western Europe was going to be the point that we [Africa] identify with. But I think somewhere in history, our natural partners, which is the Western World became passive in the geopolitics of the world, especially in your relations to Africa.

“So some ‘bad boys’ came to take over. And that has always been the impression; anytime the Western world goes quite in their relation in the scheme of things in any part of Africa, Russia and China take over,” he said.

Mr Annoh-Dompreh further noted that the intrusion of Russia and China causes the Western Countries to resume their partnership with African countries.

A situation, he describes as disquieting.

“China takes over and they are building airports and huge infrastructures that we’ve never seen before and all of a sudden, our natural allies [Western World] will come,” he said.

The 2022 German-African Conference of Parliamentarians was held in Berlin, Germany from May 09 —10, 2022.

In light of the new EU-Africa strategy adopted in February 2022, it was an important year for the Euro-African Parliamentarian Dialogue.

By 2030, the EU plans to invest €150 billion from public and private funds in Africa. Europe aims to become Africa’s “strongest partner”.

Thus, Representatives from across the African continent and Europe were in attendance.