The European Union (EU) has, in recent years, radically redefined its approach to development. The focus has shifted from the promotion of human development and welfare of partner countries to advancing European interests, competitiveness, and industry. This shift will be brought into sharp focus at the upcoming EU–African Union (AU) summit, where leaders will be forced to reckon with what “equal partnership” really means.
Nowhere is the change in the European approach to international cooperation more visible than in the Global Gateway—the EU’s flagship initiative to mobilise public and private investment in infrastructure, energy, and digital connectivity across partner countries and regions.
Several Global Gateway projects, for example, either directly or indirectly, target critical raw materials (like cobalt, lithium, rare earths) used in green technologies. African countries often export these raw materials in raw form, without local processing. This means the bulk of value addition occurs in Europe, not in Africa. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act provides support for “strategic projects” in developing countries only when they “would be mutually beneficial for the Union and the third country concerned by adding value in that third country”. In practice, however, EU critical raw materials partnerships with African countries lack detailed commitments to local value addition. The result: Africa supplies resources, Europe manufactures and profits, and African economies see only limited downstream benefits.
This growing emphasis on European interests risks introducing new forms of conditionality into partnerships; EU development assistance is no longer conditional on how partner countries relate to their own people (for example, human rights and gender equality) but on how they relate to the EU, on securing raw materials, advancing economic interests or curbing migration to Europe. The EU has entered into a number of agreements, including with Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia, where aid is dependent on partner countries cooperating on curbing migration flows to Europe. The European Commission’s proposed Global Europe Instrument for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028–2034 introduces migration conditionality as a central component of EU external policy, embedding enforceable conditions linked to return cooperation. This means that the EU can leverage its financial assistance to encourage partner countries to cooperate on reducing irregular migration to Europe, on readmission agreements and the return of migrants.
Using development assistance as an instrument of foreign, security and/or commercial policy is not new. During the Cold War both the Soviet Union and the West used foreign assistance to reward or support political allies. Aid was used to promote exports, secure support for their respective blocs in international fora or secure commercial contracts. However, evidence shows that such politically or commercially tied aid has been largely ineffective in achieving either development or strategic objectives. Tied aid is less effective and undermines the long-term development of partner countries by distorting procurement, limiting recipient country ownership, and raising costs by 15-30 percent (and in some cases up to 40 percent) compared with untied aid. When aid is tied to donor-country exports or procurement, it weakens the alignment with recipient-country priorities and undermines capacity-building. Despite the evidence, the lessons which can be learnt from history, and the win-win rhetoric that the EU espouses, it is moving toward a “winner takes all” approach.
If the EU is to regain any credibility with its partner countries, it must use the opportunity of the EU-AU Summit to engage in meaningful dialogue by listening to the needs and priorities expressed by its African partners. Real partnership must be co-created and co-designed and should ensure shared benefits, inclusive consultations, transparency and accountability.
