ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the emergence and substance of the inter-regional partnership between the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) in one particularly important policy field: peace and security. It provides an overview of the emergence of an interdependent relationship between the AU and the EU in the field of peace and security, focusing on its legal and institutional basis and highlighting major areas of policy dialogue. The chapter scrutinizes the development of complementary practices of inter-regionalism between the AU and EU, with an emphasis on, the EUs military, the high levels of the AUs financial dependence on the EU and the latter's attempts at capacity-building and, some of the most contested current issues in the partnership. Against the background of the incremental institutionalization of the inter-regional partnership between the AU and EU, it focuses on the coordination of this inter-regionalism in practice.