Scholz in Africa

Dear Reader,

Olaf Scholz spent three days last week in East Africa, his second visit to the continent since taking up office 18 months ago.

On the trip, which included stops in Ethiopia and Kenya, the chancellor announced that he wanted the African Union to join the G20, something he called “long overdue.”

Scholz’ attention to Africa has been taken as a signal of new tones in his foreign policy. Whereas Merkel focused the majority of her energy on China and the economies of the far east, Scholz wants to diversify Germany’s partners.

That is all part of his Zeitenwende vision, in which he believes that the 21st century will not be run by great powers but will be a century of ‘multipolarity’ in which power is dispersed across the globe.

He has thus been at pains to show that he is meeting African leaders auf Augenhöhe, or on equal terms.

How much of this is PR is hard to tell, though. The principal aim of his trip to Kenya seems to have been to learn lessons from a “climate champion.”

Centrepi…