My visits to West Africa as an MEP have always driven me to reflect on the differences between Europe and Africa. Not so my recent visit to Cape Verde, where the exotic nature of this archipelago off the West African coast coexists with an identity that is as uncannily similar to that of Malta as it is different.
The links I saw between Cape Verde and Malta had to do with geography and history. The population size of the two is roughly the same, that of Cape Verde being around half a million. The geographical size of the islands is often comparable, although not the ratio of population to space. The island of Boa Vista, where I stayed, for example, is twice the size of Malta but its population is only 4,000.
Both countries have a relative shortage of rainfall. Both were colonised by great naval empires, which left a marked cultural imprint. Cape Verde was part of the Portuguese empire. Portuguese is still the official language. Seventy per cent of Cape Verdeans are of mixed African and European descent and so regard themselves as being neither African nor European but a people with a unique identity. Most profess Roman Catholicism. The islands are peppered with wayside chapels painted white with blue apertures.
In the 1950s, Cape Verde was no longer considered a colony and was "integrated" within Portugal as an overseas province in order to quell the movement for independence, achieved in 1975.
National elections can have very close results. One Presidential election was decided by fewer than 20 votes! Today, Cape Verde pursues a policy of non-alignment and combines this with an active foreign policy in its region.
Its economic history was not based on being a military outpost, although on something equally gruesome, which the country wanted to put behind: an important outpost for the slave trade. For a period, it was also an important port for the coal and the salt trade. Such importance faded away as well over time but the links with Europe remained important.
Today, much of the economy is service-oriented and tourism is the main employer. Europeans form the greater part of tourists coming to this magnificent environment of lava and beaches, sharks (whose numbers are understated by locals) and turtles, wild goats, donkeys and of colourful hamlets whose houses are decorated in shades of red and black, yellow and green, Italian pink, turquoise and white. Cape Verde is the first African country I have visited where the foreign currency is the euro. This is the currency of negotiation. The four-wheel-drive Toyota taxis, necessary to navigate the cobbled roads of black lava, are not cheap. For a four-hour drive I was asked to pay €100 and it took all my effort to bargain it down to €70. (Both driver and I ended up unhappy!)
The Verdean currency, the escudo, is pegged to the euro because of the overwhelming proportion of trade conducted with Europe. I suspect more can be done to explore how the euro can target certain economies so as to become the currency of choice.
A lot of such thinking (including the wishful variety) has focused on whether the euro can displace the dollar for the oil market. The example of Cape Verde, however, draws our attention to a very different case.
In terms of good governance, Cape Verde hovers at the top of the African lists. Indeed, in terms of per capita income and governance, it comes out ahead of some EU "potential candidate countries" (such as Albania). It is one reason why the possibility of Cape Verde becoming a member of the EU is sometimes floated.
The archipelago belongs to the same family of islands, the Canary Islands (Spain) and the Azores (Portugal), which already belong to the EU. The former President of Portugal and former Socialist MEP Mario Soares has petitioned the EU to start membership talks. Other allies of Cape Verde speak of a "special status".
I am convinced by Mr Soares's argument that Cape Verde could provide a special European link with Africa and Latin America and that a closer relationship of some sort (including membership) should be explored.
What I am less convinced of is the Verdean strategy of pursuing closer links with Europe, which is by taking a step back from West African economic integration, for example by proposing to suspend the free movement of goods. It may be forced to do this under the current "rules" because it cannot be a member of the West African bloc, ECOWAS, and the EU at the same time.
However, perhaps the possibility of enabling some kind of joint membership should be explored further, in the same way that some European mini-states (like Andorra) benefit from many EU privileges without being members. Such a special status could be useful to strengthen Europe's relations with Africa and to test institutional innovations for more general use in our external policy.
Dr Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.