{"id":1000893,"date":"2026-06-02T17:19:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1000893\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T17:19:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:19:37","slug":"eu-puts-e11-5bn-on-table-to-pull-south-africa-closer-to-europe-and-away-from-china-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1000893\/","title":{"rendered":"EU puts \u20ac11.5bn on table to pull South Africa closer to Europe \u2013 and away from China \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EU has unveiled\u00a0\u20ac11.5bn in promised investment\u00a0to develop South Africa\u2019s\u00a0clean energy, transport, and pharmaceutical industries\u00a0in\u00a0the bloc\u2019s\u00a0latest\u00a0effort to shift its footprint in Africa from aid to commercial investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The \u20ac11.5bn pledge was made\u00a0at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eeas.europa.eu\/delegations\/south-africa\/press-release-global-gateway-europe-delivers-impactful-investment-partnerships-mutual-benefit_en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an investment roadshow<\/a>\u00a0hosted at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange\u00a0over Monday and Tuesday (1 and 2 June)\u00a0that gathered\u00a0350 European and South African investors, companies, financial institutions\u00a0and\u00a0marked\u00a0the EU\u2019s first major effort to\u00a0mobilise\u00a0private capital under the 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/policy.trade.ec.europa.eu\/news\/eu-and-south-africa-sign-first-ever-clean-trade-and-investment-partnership-ctip-2025-11-20_en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">EU-South Africa Clean Trade and Investment Partnership<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The cash is supposed to come from the EU\u2019s Global Gateway scheme.<\/p>\n<p>After years of cool relations between the EU and South Africa, partly driven by South Africa\u2019s economic and military links with China, Russia and India, the EU\u2019s\u00a0ties\u00a0with\u00a0Pretoria have been rebuilt over the past\u00a018 months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/euobserver.com\/217230\/kallas-pushes-to-shift-eu-development-aid-away-from-countries-backing-russia-or-iran\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c3461c0c89286498d18e98dfde4315ca-600x400.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Brussels has seized the opportunity left by the US Trump administration\u2019s attacks on president Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s government, which\u00a0it has accused of \u201cgenocide\u201d against white farmers, and threats of hefty trade tariffs,\u00a0by promising to replace some of the US\u2019s pulled funding for South Africa\u2019s shift away from fossil fuels and offering improved trade terms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Since mid-2025, EU and South African officials have been in negotiations on an improved trade deal, and a Memorandum of Understanding on critical minerals, under which the EU would offer investment in South Africa\u2019s mining industry in exchange for access\u00a0to minerals. But a deal has not yet been struck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU has unveiled\u00a0\u20ac11.5bn in promised investment\u00a0to develop South Africa\u2019s\u00a0clean energy, transport, and pharmaceutical industries\u00a0in\u00a0the bloc\u2019s\u00a0latest\u00a0effort to shift&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1000894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,221891,221889,221890],"class_list":["post-1000893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier26","tag-nameafrica","tag-termcodeafrica"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116681663214544936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1000894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}