"We plan to organize a second EU-Africa summit at the end of the year in Lisbon, where we hope a new, global strategy, currently under negotiation, will be adopted", said Manuel Lobo Antunes, the state secretary for European affairs, to the Western European Union inter-parliamentary forum in Paris.

The December summit, Mr Lobo Antunes said, "reflects Portugal's desire to re-launch cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa, to which it is linked by history, culture and geographical proximity".

The issues of "immigration, security, human rights, climate change and energy will be on the agenda of this dialogue", he said, adding that Africa's "cycle of poverty and conflict" must be broken with "fundamental" help from Europe.

"Follow-up mechanisms" would be needed to assure that summit decisions were imple mented, he said.

The Portugal News