8th Informal Joint Retreat of the AUPSC and EUPSC
8th Informal Joint Retreat of the AUPSC and EUPSCDate | 7 October 2025
Tomorrow (08 October), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the European Union (EU) Political and Security Committee (EUPSC) will convene their 8th informal joint retreat, which will be followed by the 16th annual joint consultative meeting to be convened on 09 October. This year’s joint retreat and consultative meeting is set to be hosted by EUPSC in Brussels, Belgium.
Ahead of the joint retreat, the AU PSC, particularly at the level of the Committee of Experts, met in Brussels on 6 October to finalise consultation on the agenda and the assignment of roles in leading interventions by members of the PSC. With the draft communique initiated by the EU side relayed to the AU belatedly on Friday 3 October, this will also be the first time that the AU PSC gets a chance to view and discuss on the draft joint communiqué.
Since 2015, the AUPSC and the EUPSC have institutionalised the practice of holding an informal joint retreat before their annual consultative meeting. Typically, the informal joint retreat focuses on current thematic issues. Tomorrow’s retreat is expected to focus on three key agenda items. The first one will be Peace Support Operations, with a focus on the implementation of United Nations (UN) Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2719 and complementarity between Africa-led operations and EU-Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations. The second agenda item will focus on maritime security, and the third will address hybrid threats to peace and security, with a particular emphasis on cybersecurity, AI, and disinformation.
Peace support operations constitute a major area of longstanding partnership between the AU and the EU. With the understanding that AU’s peace support operations are critical for advancing global public good and fill in critical gaps in the international peace and security architecture, the EU has been a leading partner of the AU, among others, in making significant financial contributions to AU peace operations. Following the end of the Africa Peace Facility and the inauguration of the European Peace Facility, there has been a shift in approach. Yet, tomorrow’s session is expected to build on the AU-EU ministerial joint communiqué commitment to ‘strengthen African security, defence capabilities and stabilisation, including the supply of military equipment through the European Peace Facility and the African Peace and Security Architecture.’
In terms of partnership on peace operations in Africa, the most notable recent development was the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2719 on the financing of AU-led peace operations. One concrete situation in respect of which there was strong convergence between the AU and the EU on the application of this resolution was the AU Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). Thus, EU-AU Foreign Ministers in the Joint Communiqué they adopted after their meeting on 21 May 2025 ‘recognised the need for adequate, predictable and sustainable international support for AUSSOM and supported the hybrid implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2719 (2023) pertaining to the framework for financing the AU PSOs by the UN [and] considered this as more pressing given the multiplicity of challenges facing the Federal Government of Somalia and the need to continue supporting the government and strengthening state institutions.’ Despite the consensus between the AU and the EU on the application of UNSC Resolution 2719, the UNSC failed to adopt a decision on the use of this resolution for financing the AU mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). With no alternative source of funding available, the AUSSOM is faced with an existential financial crisis.
Despite the setback regarding the application of the Resolution for financing AUSSOM, the PSC is expected not only to affirm strong support for Resolution 2719 but also to call for strong commitment by all for the implementation of the resolution. The draft joint communiqué initiated by the EU side does not contain a dedicated language on Resolution 2719, which is viewed by members of the PSC as an omission that needs to be rectified. It is thus anticipated that the PSC will push for a formulation expressing strong support for and a joint call for advancing the implementation of the resolution in the joint communiqué to be adopted during the annual consultative meeting.
The second sub-item of the first agenda item focuses on complementarity between African missions and EU missions/operations. The EU runs various missions and operations as part of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and CSDP in various parts of the continent, including three military operations (Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique and Somalia) and five civilian missions (CAR, Gulf of Guinea, Libya, Mauritania and Somalia). In the theatres where African and EU missions operate in parallel, there is an opportunity for closer coordination and advancing complementarity. It is expected that during tomorrow’s retreat, the PSC and the EUPSC will exchange on opportunities not only for experience and information sharing but also for technical and logistical cooperation between the Africa-led missions and the EU-CSDP missions and operations operating in the same country.
The other agenda item tabled for the AUPSC-EUPSC informal retreat is Maritime Security. From the Joint communiqué of the May 2025 AU-EU Summit, the ministers welcomed the ongoing cooperation between the two continents on enhancing maritime security in the ocean and sea bordering Africa and Europe. In this regard, they ‘renewed their commitment to maintaining a rules-based maritime order in accordance with the principles of international law as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and called for greater exchange of information, improvement of operational coordination and provision of enforcement capacity to protect sea lanes and combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking and piracy. The ministers also committed to work together to end Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, take action to conserve and sustainably use the ocean and sea, as well as promote science-based management of marine resources.’ The upcoming consultations are likely to discuss the evolving maritime security threats critical to Africa’s blue economy, global trade routes and EU-Africa partnerships.
The engagement on this may build on the 23 April 1275th session of the PSC, which focused on the ‘Imperative of a Combined Maritime Task Force in Addressing Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.’ From the session’s communiqué, it is notable that beyond endorsing the Combined Maritime Task Force for the Gulf of Guinea as a standing, ready-to-deploy force capable of rapid and coordinated regional responses, the PSC underscored the importance of addressing the underlying drivers of maritime crime – poverty, weak governance and limited economic opportunities. This marked a welcome shift toward a holistic, preventive approach to maritime security, recognising that sustainable stability cannot be secured through military and law enforcement measures alone. By prioritising issues such as development deficits, corruption, youth unemployment and lack of sustainable livelihoods, the approach holds promise for building long-term resilience in coastal communities.
Finally, the last agenda item to be discussed at the AUPSC-EUPSC joint informal retreat is hybrid threats to peace and security, with particular focus on cybersecurity, AI and disinformation. Hybrid threats encompassing cybersecurity breaches, AI-driven manipulations and disinformation campaigns have escalated globally and across Africa as well, posing a threat to stability. According to INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report, a growing share of reported crimes in Africa is cyber-related. The report goes further and highlights that, despite the rising caseloads, most African states surveyed still lack essential IT infrastructure to combat cybercrime. Just 30 per cent of countries reported having an incident reporting system, 29 per cent a digital evidence repository and 19 per cent a cyberthreat intelligence database.
Regarding AI and disinformation, the AU Commission Chairperson noted in a speech earlier this year that ‘with AI’s ability to spread rapidly, …complex ethical and security concerns now exist.’ He cautioned that ‘[l]eft unchecked, AI will amplify these threats, exploiting disinformation, cyber-attacks, and even autonomous weapons,’ adding that disinformation and hate speech in the online space have become ‘most dangerous accelerators of conflicts.’ Accordingly, the AUC Chairperson counselled that ‘[o]ur response must be to pursue a balanced approach—one that maximises AI’s benefits while mitigating its risks.’ It is expected within this context that the two sides would exchange respective experiences, both in terms of the nature and trend of the threat posed by cybersecurity, AI and disinformation, and in terms of the tools being used and developed to respond to these threats. Issues that may feature include closing AI governance gaps, harmonising early warning systems for AI-driven misinformation and expanding capacity-building for digital literacy and fact-checking. By integrating African perspectives into the development of global AI norms and governance, as well as advancing joint action for countering hybrid threats, the consultations can ensure the adaptation of the AU’s and EU’s governance and peace and security instruments to these emerging domains.