As African leaders prepare for the 7th African Union\u2013European Union Summit in Luanda on 24\u201325 November 2025, they should reassess the continent\u2019s trade and aid relationship with the EU in light of persistent structural imbalances. More than sixty years after the formal end of colonial rule, Africa\u2019s trade profile with Europe remains highly extractive and minimally transformative, dominated by raw material exports rather than diversified, higher value\u2011added goods.<\/p>\n
The first AU\u2013EU summit<\/a>, held in Cairo in 2000, promised a partnership based on equality, mutual respect and shared prosperity, yet Africa\u2019s economic diversification has advanced only marginally. According to Eurostat<\/a>, between 2022 and 2024 minerals and fuels made up 53% of Africa\u2019s exports to the EU (\u20ac194bn), led by Algeria, Nigeria, Libya, Angola and Egypt. Vehicles and parts (6%), electrical machinery (5%), cocoa products (3%), apparel (3%) and other items such as gems, fertilisers, iron and steel together accounted for only about 7% of exports.<\/p>\n Colonial-era trade patterns linger<\/p>\n This pattern mirrors the economic geography shaped in the colonial era, when infrastructure and trade routes were designed to move unprocessed resources from Africa\u2019s interior to European markets. It also sits uneasily with the AU\u2019s Agenda 2063<\/a>, which prioritises industrialisation, value addition and economic diversification. A key question for the summit, therefore, is whether current AU\u2013EU trade agreements and EU \u201cAid for Trade\u201d are helping to change this profile or locking it in.<\/p>\n The 1975 Lom\u00e9 Convention<\/a> was the first major trade and aid agreement between the European Community (now the EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, later replaced by the Cotonou Agreement<\/a> in 2000. Both offered non\u2011reciprocal preferences to ACP exports. After Cotonou expired, the EU moved to a differentiated approach: least developed countries (LDCs) receive unilateral preferences through the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, while non\u2011LDCs are expected to conclude reciprocal Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) consistent with WTO rules. Although WTO disciplines allow flexibility in such agreements \u2013 longer transition periods, partial product coverage and more flexible rules of origin \u2013 the EU has often used this room in ways that are unfavorable for Africa\u2019s non\u2011LDCs.<\/p>\n Across Africa, the EPA experience has been concerning. Under pressure to avoid loss of EU market access<\/a>, Ghana, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini and Kenya ratified EPAs with demanding tariff\u2011liberalisation schedules on EU imports. In Ghana, analysts argue that the government effectively capitulated<\/a> to far\u2011reaching EU demands partly because negotiations coincided with the 10th European Development Fund, during which Ghana received \u20ac373.6m in budget support<\/a>. In the East African Community, Kenya\u2019s bilateral EPA has undermined the Common External Tariff<\/a>: it agreed to a 25% tariff on EU wines and spirits, below the EAC CET rate of 35% intended to protect local producers. Other signatories with similarly demanding terms include Cameroon, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Lesotho, Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n Several African non\u2011LDCs remain outside EPAs, including Algeria, Cabo Verde, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe, South Sudan and Tunisia. Nigeria, in particular, resisted EU pressure<\/a> and declined to sign because the EU sought extensive tariff liberalisation despite Nigeria offering a five\u2011year tax holiday to foreign investors to encourage domestic production. Nigeria\u2019s plan was to phase out tariffs gradually while maintaining tax incentives, so EU firms would invest in local manufacturing and move down the value chain instead of perpetuating raw\u2011material exports. EU insistence on far\u2011reaching liberalisation risked reinforcing the colonial pattern: Nigeria exports raw commodities to the EU for processing and then imports finished products back.<\/p>\n Value chains must reflect Africa\u2019s priorities<\/p>\n Aid policy shows similar tensions. The EU presents itself as the world\u2019s leading provider of \u201cAid for Trade\u201d, and Africa receives the largest share<\/a> of this support. Yet the EU\u2019s own progress report<\/a> indicates that most funds go to trade\u2011related infrastructure \u2013 customs reform, ports, corridors and logistics \u2013 rather than targeted value\u2011chain development. Meanwhile, the EU\u2019s Global Gateway initiative, which aims for significant investments<\/a> in Africa, largely focuses on large\u2011scale infrastructure in energy, transport and digital connectivity. Critics argue these projects are geostrategic responses<\/a> aimed at reducing EU dependence on Chinese minerals and Russian gas by securing access to African raw materials, rather than systematically building African industrial capacities.<\/p>\n Infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient to transform Africa\u2019s export profile. Much of the continent\u2019s legacy infrastructure was designed in colonial times to move unprocessed resources from mines and plantations to ports. Current aid that concentrates on infrastructure, without parallel investment in processing and upgrading, risks mimicking that model.<\/p>\n The last AU\u2013EU summit declaration<\/a> pledged support for regional and continental integration and described trade agreements as instruments to deepen trade, foster development and achieve mutually beneficial integration of both continents\u2019 markets. To honour these commitments, the EU should accept African tariff\u2011liberalisation schedules under EPAs where they are clearly calibrated to promote local production and economic diversification. It should also move beyond a generic focus on \u201cconnectivity\u201d and \u201chard infrastructure\u201d and align its aid more closely with sector\u2011specific value\u2011chain strategies in agriculture, manufacturing and services that reflect Africa\u2019s own priorities and the realities of Agenda 2063<\/a>.<\/p>\n African leaders should use leverage<\/p>\n This requires changing how aid is designed. Too often, EU aid frameworks are drafted in Brussels or other European capitals, with African governments treated as implementers rather than co\u2011architects. In today\u2019s context \u2013 where Africa is a competitive destination for trade and investment from China, Turkey, Gulf states and others \u2013 African leaders have more leverage to insist that aid and EPAs support higher value\u2011added exports instead of raw\u2011material dependence. Progress should be measured less by export volumes and more by the degree of value addition generated within African economies.<\/p>\n As the 7th AU\u2013EU Summit convenes in Luanda, African leaders should deliver a clear and unified message: Europe\u2019s aid to Africa and its EPAs must move beyond merely securing access to African markets and resources and instead enable African ownership of value creation on the continent. If the EU fails to adapt to Africa\u2019s competitive rise and to the ambitions embodied in the African Continental Free Trade Area and Agenda 2063, it risks losing influence and market share in a region that is its closest neighbour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As African leaders prepare for the 7th African Union\u2013European Union Summit in Luanda on 24\u201325 November 2025, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,10777,6586,1201],"class_list":{"0":"post-590851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-european-union-eu","13":"tag-resources","14":"tag-trade"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115605009046330355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590851","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=590851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}