Another missed opportunity to relaunch Africa-Europe cooperation

Matias Mongan, Gate Center collaborator and journalist.

Under the rather unoriginal and almost anachronistic slogan “Promoting peace and prosperity through effective multilateralism,” the 7th European Union (EU)–African Union (AU) Summit was held in Luanda (Angola) between 24 and 25 November 2025. The timing of the meeting was not ideal, as it took place only one day after the G20 Summit in South Africa and amid the controversy generated by the peace plan for Ukraine presented by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. This forced European leaders to devote part of the conclave to coordinating positions on Ukraine instead of focusing on promoting economic and political cooperation between Europe and Africa.

Despite the high expectations surrounding the Summit, which coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the EU–AU interregional scheme, it produced no significant results and did little to relaunch the relationship. However, it is possible to identify some partial progress on issues of common interest and a somewhat more horizontal cooperation—particularly at the discursive level. For African governments, cooperation with Europe serves to diversify their economies and reduce dependency on China. Meanwhile, the EU seeks to strengthen its ties with Africa in order to regain influence on the continent, taking advantage of China’s pullback from cooperation (Mongan 2025).

Main challenges facing Euro-African cooperation

One of the main criticisms typically directed at Euro-African cooperation is that the EU monopolizes the agenda of presidential summits by leveraging its greater economic and political weight (Laporte 2025). This time, African countries succeeded in incorporating some of their demands into the Joint Declaration, which represents progress compared to previous meetings. They also sought to give the bilateral agenda a multidimensional approach, in order to prevent the EU from focusing discussions solely on issues aligned with its interests (such as migration and natural resources).

Thus, for example, the text mentions the need to reform the international financial system and promote more transparent and effective debt-restructuring programs (European Council 2025), given that in 2023, 46% of African countries had a debt-to-GDP ratio above 60% (UNCTAD 2024). This demand has been systematically put forward by African leaders in various multilateral forums and is consistent with the request made by Angola’s President João Lourenço at the start of the Summit.

However, the problem is that the commitments announced are not implemented and have an impact only at a performative level, without contributing to altering structural dependencies—something already evident in previous EU–AU summits (Ideas Indaba 2025).

One of the main challenges for African economies is diversifying their productive structures to reduce dependence on raw materials, which account for 60% of exported goods in more than half of the continent’s countries (UNCTAD 2025). This keeps economies highly vulnerable to external shocks—both economic and geopolitical (United Nations 2022)—reducing income levels and generating major social consequences (UNCTAD 2023).

This unequal dynamic is also present in trade between Africa and Europe. The EU is Africa’s main trading partner. In 2024, trade flows reached €355 billion, accounting for roughly one-third of Africa’s total trade. That year, African countries recorded a trade surplus of about €22 billion with the EU. Some 71.3% of European imports from Africa were primary products, while nearly 67% of EU exports consisted of manufactured goods (European Commission 2025).

A similar dependency pattern characterizes African countries’ trade with China, another important partner with which the structure of unequal exchange is reproduced—with an even worse balance. Unlike the surplus with the EU, Africa recorded a trade deficit of $63 billion with China in 2023 (AfricaTrade Academy 2025).

Given this commercial asymmetry, it was to be expected that the Joint Declaration would include some measure aimed at addressing these imbalances. For example, various studies emphasize the need to strengthen trade ties in the services sector (EIIR 2024; Were and Odongo 2022). This would allow African economies to incorporate added value into their products—both in tourism and in other sectors (software, the digital economy, etc.)—and improve their position within global value chains.

Euro-African cooperation dates back to the 1970s, when the Lomé Convention (1975) was signed, leading in 2000 to the Cotonou Agreement. However, over the past two decades, African economies’ participation in global trade has declined, with their exports falling from 3.5% in 2009 to 3.3% in 2024 (Afreximbank 2025:11).

Closing reflections

On the geopolitical front, one of the EU’s objectives for this summit was to present itself as a counterweight to China in Africa and as a “reliable” trading partner. This is occurring at a time when the United States is retreating from the continent, following the directives of President Trump. China, for its part, has changed its cooperation model, shifting from large-scale infrastructure projects in low-income countries to promoting smaller-scale initiatives, principally in technology and energy sectors (Yeung 2024). This shift threatens to leave African countries without the external financing needed to carry out infrastructure works essential for modernizing their economies.

The EU aims to fill this gap. In her opening speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed that Europe’s commitment to Africa was permanent and that, unlike Xi Jinping’s government, the primary goal of its development policy was to generate dynamics beneficial to both sides: “Other investors often follow a different strategy. They build factories—whether in Africa or in Europe—but staff them with foreign workers. They drill, extract and take the profits, often leaving behind a legacy of unsustainable debt. This is not the European model” (European Commission 2025).

Another achievement of European diplomacy was convincing African countries to include in the Joint Declaration a commitment to preventing irregular migration and even to promoting “voluntary returns,” in line with bilateral agreements and with respect for human rights. For the EU, this is a high-priority issue. African leaders, however, remain reluctant to frame the bilateral relationship solely around this topic, as some far-right European governments would prefer.

If the EU truly wants to expand its influence and weight on the African continent and compete with China, it will have to offer tangible benefits to the region’s economies. The Angola Summit ended up being another missed opportunity in this regard, reflecting the low geopolitical priority the EU assigns to its relationship with Africa.

African states are aware of the opportunity created by the competition among the major powers for spheres of influence in the international system. Therefore, they do not hesitate to use a utilitarian logic that has traditionally characterized the foreign policy of peripheral countries and to promote a “pendular” model of international engagement through which they seek to extract maximum advantage from their diplomatic ties. One example of this is that at the beginning of the summit, Angolan President João Lourenço emphasized that the world was not made up of “only one or two countries” and that his government was willing to work with all types of partners (Jornal de Angola 2025). This highlights the predisposition of African countries to avoid unconditional alignments in order to expand their room for international maneuver.