Three West African Juntas Reiterate Immediate Ecowas Exit

Katarina Hoije
·1 min read
2

(Bloomberg) -- Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso plan to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African States immediately after the regional bloc pushed for a return to civilian rule.

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The nations communicated their plans to the Ecowas Commission in separate letters copied to reporters on Monday and Tuesday.

The 15-member regional union had pushed for a return to civilian rule in all the three countries since the putsches, which started with Mali in 2020. Ecowas introduced far-reaching economic and diplomatic sanctions to exert pressure on some of the blocs poorest, who are also battling a sprawling Islamist insurgency.

Mali and Burkina Faso were scheduled to hold elections this year, according to agreements with Ecowas, while talks with Niger have yet to start.

The bloc on Sunday said it was ready to negotiate with the juntas to find a solution to the crisis, noting that it had not yet received the formal one-year notice necessary to withdraw from the bloc.

The African Union called for talks to be intensified in order to preserve unity. The African Union Commission is available “to provide all the assistance in its power for the success of fraternal dialog, far from all external interference,” commission president Moussa Faki Mahamat, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are founding members of Ecowas, created in 1975 by the signing of a treaty in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

(Updates with statement from African Union in sixth paragraph.)

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