Africa-EU summit seeks to reinvigorate ties

About 70 African and European leaders met in Angola on Monday for a summit where they committed to stronger trade ties, alignment on strategic minerals, and migration amid intensifying global competition for African partnerships.

The meeting in Luanda, which came right after the G20 in South Africa, saw Europe trying to reassert its influence on the continent as Africa grows ever closer to China and expands ties with the Gulf and Türkiye.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen leaned into Europe’s economic heft, reminding leaders that the bloc remains Africa’s biggest trading partner. Still, concerns about Europe’s long record of extracting raw materials were evident. “It is no longer time to be just suppliers of raw materials,” she said, positioning the EU’s Global Gateway projects as tools for real industrial development. The leaders emphasized the EU-backed Lobito Corridor, which links Angola’s port to DR Congo and Zambia’s copper and cobalt mines, as an example of a long-term investment that goes beyond extraction and also involves local economic development.

However, fraying alliances between Europe and the US and pressure around the war in Ukraine have prompted some analysts to argue that Brussels lacks the capacity to reinvigorate its relationship with Africa.