The European Union has formally announced that it is reviving cooperation with Eritrea after the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace deal. To this extent, the EU announced on February 8, 2019, that it would invest EUR 20 million to build roads linking Eritrea’s port cities and the Ethiopian border.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this month that as a result, a wind of peace is blowing through the Horn of Africa region. This wind of peace is especially noticeable in the border region between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The reopening of the border, which was shut for two decades, has resulted in a business boom. Traders with materials are crossing from Ethiopia into Eritrea with reports showing long queues of trucks waiting for clearance. After twenty years, the Eritrean market is yearning for products from Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa’s biggest economy. In the last week of February, a delegation of high level Eritrean officials led by the country’s foreign minister, visited Addis Ababa to assess and cement progress made in bilateral cooperation since the peace deal went into effect.