EU-US Security Relations in Africa

While Africa continues to be crucial for the EU and EU member states, it is not on the top of the agenda in the US, and thus neither on top of EU-US relations. The US however continues to be engaged in two areas: counter terrorism and counter piracy operations. In these areas, we also find a continued transatlantic cooperation - both between the US and the EU and between the US individual EU countries (mainly France). Focusing on transatlantic cooperation on counter terrorist engagement with a special focus on the Sahel and the Maghreb regions, this paper explores two questions. First, is the existing transatlantic cooperation in Africa characterized by a unified or a differentiated EU approach? And second, what can explain the transatlantic tensions we have observed since 2016/2017? Are they due primarily to a difference in foreign policy style, or a result of a more deeper division in both interests and values? And to what extent do the existing institutions and transatlantic cooperation frameworks seem to compensate for these differences?