European Union (EU) delegation to South Africa head Roeland van de Geer was succeeded earlier this month by Marcus Cornaro, an experienced Austrian and European diplomat, who most recently worked as deputy director-general in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development and Cooperation.

Van de Geer, a Dutch national, headed the delegation for the past five years and would now take up an EU posting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

He departed ahead of the final signing and ratification of the much-delayed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and the Southern African Customs Union, including Mozambique.

However, speaking ahead of his departure, Van de Geer stressed that the EPA, which took ten years to conclude, had been finalised and was likely to move into “provisional application” by early 2016. Full application would require ratification from the Parliaments of the 28 EU member States, as well as Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland. It could, therefore, take longer to achieve.

Material progress had also been made in resolving the stand-off between South Africa and the EU on citrus black spot (CBS), with the South African citrus industry having already met its 650 000 t export target for 2015, with only nine interceptions. In 2014, there had been 35 interceptions.

The EU and South Africa had agreed to resolve their scientific dispute over fruit-to-plant CBS contamination through the International Plant Protection Convention. South Africa contends there is no scientific evidence of such contamination.

The trade performance, affected during Van de Geer’s term by the global economic crisis, had also shown some “surprising” signs of improvement, with South African exports to the EU rising 7.6% in the second quarter of 2015 and EU exports to South Africa rising 7.4%.

South African exports to the EU in 2014 came in at R193-billion, an improvement on the R165-billion exported to the EU in 2013. EU exports to South Africa rose in 2014 to R301-billion, from R284-billion.

Van de Geer expected Cornaro would seek to “consolidate” the relationship during his term, noting that an “enormous amount of work” lay ahead simply in maintaining and sustaining the various structures that had been established between the EU and South Africa. These ranged from the dialogue on human rights and ongoing development support, to various skills and educational programmes.

In addition, the next EU-South Africa Summit was expected to take place in Brussels during the course of 2016.

The EU has also come to terms with South Africa’s decision to unilaterally cancel bilateral investment treaties with European countries and Van de Geer says the focus currently is on the formulation of the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill, which is before South African lawmakers.

“If the Bill is there and it’s stable, then I think business will accept it and they will then look [mostly] at the economic climate.”

He did express some concern about the prevailing investment climate, however, arguing that foreign firms would feel more comfortable in making investments in South Africa if they saw domestic companies taking the investment lead.