Although Reuters didn’t mention the name of African Union chair Macky Sall of Senegal, it reported back on June 20 that member countries of the EU, in preparation for their June 23-24 summit, had proposed a plan to assist African countries in developing fertilizer production capacity, and that the European Commission killed the plan. Sall on June 19, according to Politico, called on the EU to “provide scope” for African countries to pay for imported cereals and fertilizers from Russia despite Russian banks being excluded by sanctions from payment systems. “We want to pay, but it is becoming impossible. So we ask the Europeans for the same mechanism as for gas and oil,” Sall had told Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview, and Politico picked up the report.
But, reported Reuters, the European Commission demanded that the EU members’ proposal be changed: Not to give funding and other assistance to development of African fertilizer production, but “to promote alternatives to or more efficient use of fertilizers [because] supporting fertilizer production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies.”
