In the context of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and following up on the EU-Africa summit (Brussels, April 2014), two key meetings took place to follow up progress on the agreements and declarations reached by leaders of both Europe and Africa. The Infrastructure Reference Group meeting took place in Brussels in Brussels from 24 to 25 March 2015 and directly fed into the 7^th College to College meeting which took place in Brussels on 22 April 2015. 

The progress and conclusions of these meetings, with explicit mention of the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP) and the Renewable Energy Cooperation Programme (RECP), have been very relevant to the continued momentum of the cooperation between Africa and Europe on energy. The AEEP is currently chaired by the African Union Commission, the European Commission, Germany and Italy.

In summary, the Commissioners reconfirmed their continued cooperation on infrastructure and jointly ensure cross-sectoral coordination in relation to transport, energy, water and ICT. This meeting comes at an important time when global leaders will assemble in Paris in November 2015 for the Conference of Parties (COP21) hence an occasion to show continued increase to leveraging of public and private investment, deployment of energy infrastructure and climate change mitigation as fundamental pillars for energy development cooperation and policy dialogue. 

Under Related Publications on the right are the two documents. The sections relevant to AEEP and RECP are highlighted for ease of reference:

• Paragraph 27 of the Joint Declaration
• Paragraph 3 of the Reference Group statement

 This is yet another political milestone to confirm the excellent cooperation between the two continents in the framework of JAES.