Every three years, African and European leaders gather to discuss the future of their partnership. Since the last summit in 2014, the global landscape has – again - changed significantly posing new challenges to the partnership. By respectfully working together, the cooperation holds great potential to resolve or mitigate these challenges. However, in order to achieve that, Africa and Europe have to sort out issues that still stand in the way of a strengthened and mutually beneficial partnership. The intercontinental dialog is therefore more relevant than ever. It is in this context, that the FES AU Cooperation Office together with its partner, CCPAU, organized the pre-summit meeting “Stormy times ahead?– The Africa-EU relations in the run-up to the 2017 Summit”.