South Africa is one of the main partners of the European Union in Africa and in the world. The economic weight of the EU, the leading investor and the leading donor in South Africa, is also not unrelated to South Africa's choice of a special relationship with its European partners. Since the signing in 1999 of the “  Agreement on Trade, Development and Cooperation” (ACDC) , which provided for the gradual liberalization of more than 90% of bilateral trade by 2012, EU-South Africa relations have not stopped intensifying. South Africa signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with the EU on May 14, 2007. A first EU-South Africa summit, under the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, was held on July 25, 2008 in Bordeaux, and made it possible to find convergence on various issues such as climate change or the role of the private sector. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th EU-South Africa Summits have since been held alternately in South Africa and in Brussels. Trade and investment, as well as the tools to boost growth and jobs, were high on the agenda of the fifth EU South Africa summit which took place in Brussels on September 18, 2012. To on the occasion of this fifth anniversary of the EU-RSA strategic partnership, the participants took stock of the progress made on subjects such as peace and security, human rights, disarmament and non-proliferation, trade, space and education. The summit participants reaffirmed the importance they attached to the EU-South Africa strategic partnership.