Ethiopia and France enjoy a strong diplomatic relations that passed through more than a century of cooperation. At present, the two countries have diversified their ties in various sectors including economic development, culture and heritage as well as continental endeavor.
The Ethiopian Herald recently interviewed HE Ambassador Alexis Lamek, Ambassador of France to Ethiopia and Representative to African Union (AU) to have his views on the progress of the two countries ties in the various fields, a few days before France’s national day, celebrated on the 14th of July.
Your Excellency Ambassador Alexis Lamek, I would like to say thank you very much for allowing us your time for the interview. To start, could you tell me about overall Ethiopian-France long-standing relations that span more than a century? How is this relation maintained so far?
Thank you, and welcome to the French Embassy. I’m very honored to have a discussion with you and to speak to The Ethiopian Herald. The relation between Ethiopia and France is actually pretty long. It’s more than 125 years old. We were the second country to establish diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, and we are very proud of that. We have a long shared history.
We have a number of institutions that we have established together, like the Ethiopian-French Lycée Gebre Mariam, created 78 years ago and we are very proud of it. And what is important for me is that this relation is not just history. It is also a living relation, very dense, and a thriving relation between our two countries. The best illustration of that is the fact that our leaders have a very dense and trustful dialogue. President Emmanuel Macron was in this country last December, six months ago, and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia went to France six weeks ago.
This political dialogue that we have is also one very important element of the relation between our two countries. But it is not the only one. What makes it a very strong and important relation is the fact that we also have a relation between companies, between people, between academics. That is what makes the relation between the two countries a successful one. For us, it’s a priority to make sure that we can strengthen this relation at the level of the people, of the companies, of the civil societies. We try to encourage investors to come here to Ethiopia.
Of course, there are a number of issues to be addressed to make sure that Ethiopia is fully attractive to them. We work on that together with the Ethiopian authorities. We work also to develop the relation between civil society here in Ethiopia and with the civil society in France.
Civil society plays a very important role in the life of the country. We try to work also on relation between the French and Ethiopian media. We believe that that is the best way to make sure that our relation is a strong, healthy, sustainable, and mutually beneficial.
The government of Ethiopia is raising the issue of sea access. So, how do you see this situation? Especially, Ethiopia is highly interested to rebuild its navy, for which France had great support sometime in the past. Is there anything to go around this?
First, it is perfectly legitimate for any country especially a very large, landlocked country, possibly the largest landlocked country on the continent, to diversify its access to the sea. That is something which is perfectly legitimate as long as it’s done in line with international law and in consultation with the neighbors. It’s not a challenge only for a country like Ethiopia. In Europe we have many landlocked countries, but it’s not a difficulty, because through dialogue, consultation with neighbors, and this kind of day-to-day relation, they have access to the sea through the harbors of their neighbors, and so it works.
But in any case, as I said, we understand fully the legitimacy of this request, and of course, it’s part of the dialogue also that we have with Ethiopia, and I hope that this ambition can be addressed in good cooperation, consultation with the neighbors, in a peaceful manner, obviously.
Concerning the Navy, there was a request from Ethiopia to assist the development of the Naval capacity, and so we were happy to provide some training for the Navy. The Navy is a very important part of the identity of France. It’s a modest cooperation, but we are very proud of it, and I think eventually that would allow Ethiopia to do its part also globally when it comes to security in the high seas. At this moment, so as I said, it’s about training. We take some time on board Ethiopian Navy officers on our ships, and it’s an interesting cooperation.
Ethiopia has opened up some of its economic sectors that we have closed in the past, especially for foreign, like banking and telecom sectors. So how does France view this Ethiopia opening up, especially the banking, the finance sector?
It’s very important. History shows that a monopolistic situation is not good. It’s not good for the economy. It’s not good for the consumer. So putting an end to a monopolistic situation actually gives some incentive to the different actors to modernize, to improve the quality of their service, to decrease the prices.
And so it’s true in all the things that it’s a very important and healthy process. I think it’s practically obvious when it comes to telecoms, banking as well. Opening and allowing new actors to come is something which all economists would agree with. Indeed, it’s part of this economic reform program and we just encourage that.
The Ethiopian Airlines is the largest flight carrier in Africa, and it’s a client of Airbus. So these days it’s procuring many Airbus flights. How do you think this contributes to the cooperation of Ethiopia and France in the aviation industry?
Airbus is owned by four European countries: France, Germany, UK and Spain with its headquarters in France, in Toulouse. It is one of the most impressive industrial achievements in Europe. For Airbus, and hence for France, Ethiopian Airlines is a very important partner. It’s the largest carrier in Africa, a very successful one, with a very high level of satisfaction for users, performing extremely well.
Let’s face it, over the course of its long history, Ethiopian Airlines was mostly working with Boeing, so we are very happy that over the last few years they decided to open to Airbus planes. And, speaking to my interlocutors in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines is very happy of this partnership with Airbus. This year, Airbus provided to Ethiopia its first Airbus A350-1000, the first ones ever to be sent to Africa. I had actually the honor to be on the maiden flight, so it was an amazing experience. And so now I think Ethiopian Airlines has three of them while another one is still coming.
In the meantime, also a few more purchases have been decided for more A350-900. So I think it’s a very trustful and promising relationship that is in place in this regard, and we are very proud to be part of this fantastic adventure.
For a year now, Ethiopia has been implementing a Macro-economic reform. The reform was highly feared in the past. But this government has taken a bold action to implement this reform. How do you see the implementation so far?
These reforms are very ambitious and impressive. They are assisted by the international institutions, the IMF, the World Bank. And I’m very impressed actually by the assessment that these institutions are doing. And I am very enthusiastic regarding the political will displayed by Ethiopia when it comes to the implementation of these reforms. That is why we have decided to support their implementation.
Already back at the time of the first homegrown economic reform, six years ago, there was an IMF program, and we were already participating. As the only bilateral donor we lent close to 100 million euros to Ethiopia. Well, this time, for the second one, we’re also on board. We have decided to be here to accompany this second homegrown economic reform, and to participate also.
Last year, in December, we provided a grant for budgetary assistance, 25 million euros, and so we intend to continue along this base. So far we are the only bilateral donor in this regard. But it does not stop there.
We’ve been very engaged in working on the restructuring of the Ethiopian debt within the common framework of the G20, together with the Chinese. We pushed forward the process for the restructuring of the debt, which led actually to the adoption of a MOU last week. It’s not directly part of the economic reform, but it’s a very important enabler, because it’s going to allow a number of countries to start lending again.
It’s going to allow Ethiopia to start borrowing again, if necessary, to other partners, and we’ll be happy, of course, to support and to accompany in this regard. One example is that we are going to provide some support in the implementation of a very ambitious project called RISED, which is about renovating and enlarging the electric grid all over the country. It’s a Global Gateway project that we undergo together with the European Union and that will be a game-changer for this country.
The ambition is such that, for a partner like us, it’s worth supporting this country to make it possible for the economy to switch from dirigist economy towards a much more open economy where private companies can thrive. And that’s very much an approach that we want to support.
France is famous for its architecture. Its architecture has also a rich footprint in Ethiopia. How do France and Ethiopia cooperate in renovating cities, and maintaining heritages?
We have a long history in this country when it comes to architecture. I understand that during the past century, Ethiopian leaders have called a number of French artists, architects, engineers, archaeologists even, to contribute to that. There are a few famous French architects who worked here.
One of them is called Henri Chomette. He contributed to the modern design of the capital here in Ethiopia, in Addis. He was the architect of the first Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, (CBE)’s headquarters on Churchill Road. This beautiful building which was designed according to the traditional architecture is supposed to look like a “tukul”.
Chomette was also the one who designed other important buildings like the National Theatre, Lycee Guebre Mariam, the headquarters of the Organization of the African Unity in front of the National Palace. These are few of his architectural landmarks in Addis.
We are very proud of this Ethio-French footprint in this beautiful city. There have been also other talents, such as Paul Barias. He’s the architect who designed La Gare, again in the same area. That was in the 1920s. And I think you might have heard also of the French sculptor Maurice Calca, the one who made the monument of the Lion of Judah in 1955. There are a number of these artists, actually, who came here and now they are part of the landscape of the city.
There is a long history between our two countries, when it comes to architecture and arts. That’s probably the reason why my President [Emmanuel Macron] accepted the request of the Ethiopian authorities to work together with Ethiopia in the field of heritage, preservation of the national heritage. We started a number of very important and transformative projects, such as the renovation of the National Palace. It’s completed now. People can visit it, and it’s an amazing achievement. So, what was the palace of Emperor Haile Selassie I has been fully renovated. And I hope visitors can enjoy this very historically loaded building.
Beyond that, also, we have been working on other parts of the Ethiopian heritage, like in Lalibela. There have been a few programs started a few years ago to work with the community there like the priests, the church, the local people in order to renovate, work on the accessibility, the sustainability of the buildings.
I understand it was very successful. We have a large program now to go beyond Lalibela and beyond the Orthodox heritage towards industrial heritage, Muslim heritage, and also as far as Tigray to enlarge the scope.
We are very satisfied of this cooperation, which has been also implemented by the French Center for Ethiopian Studies, which is a research center based here in Addis Ababa, and we are very much looking forward to continue working with Ethiopia in this regard.
But it’s true that it’s very impressive when you look at the history over the last century, the number of places which actually have shown how close we have been.
Finally, The Ethiopian Herald would like to invite you to convey any message for our readers, to people of Ethiopia.
Earlier in the discussion, we spoke about the European Union. It’s very much a unique political experiment that we had right in Europe, and we Europeans are very enthusiastic about what we did.
And we did it using a certain method, which I think is relevant everywhere. And that method was about, switching from the idea that relations between people, countries, et cetera, should be a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is when, you consider that I win only if you lose.
That’s not a good solution. You can always find a win-win solution when both sides win through discussion, constant dialogue, consultation. Through putting yourself in the other’s shoes and seeing how we can actually both benefit from the situation. And I think that’s the method that we have used within the European Union, and it worked. It worked very well. And I think it’s a method which can be used everywhere. So that would be my message.
Thank you very much.
Thank you!
BY ZEKARIAS WOLDEMARIAM
