EU foreign ministers approved the appointment of former Portuguese foreign minister João Gomes Cravinho as EU special representative for the Sahel, according to Euractiv.
The Council today appointed João Cravinho as EU Special Representative (EUSR) for the Sahel region.
The statement said the new EUSR would “actively contribute to regional and international endeavours to achieve lasting peace, security, stability and sustainable development in the region.” The effort covers Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania.
The EUSR will also collaborate with the countries of the Lake Chad basin and with other countries and regional or international entities within and outside the region, including the Maghreb and the Gulf of Guinea and neighbouring countries affected by the dynamics of the Sahel.
The appointment was formalised on Monday in Brussels. Gomes Cravinho is due to take up his new post in December and serve until August 2026.
The Sahel is a vast area in Africa from Senegal to Eritrea. However, the EU will focus on Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger, as well as countries on the Atlantic coast. Gomes Cravinho stated that the EU was the only world power capable of taking an active interest in the region at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and other international organisations had other challenges.
I won’t be short of work, and neither will the strategic importance of the region for Europe. If we don’t take care of this, and nobody else will, because the United States looks at the Sahel as a problem that affects Europe, NATO doesn’t have the tools or the vocation to work here either, so it’s up to the European Union to use its tools to generate a different dynamic in the region.
