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In 2022 the desired narrative of a renewed partnership between Africa and Europe, as adopted in a February summit of heads of state and government, was disrupted by Russia’s war against Ukraine and its global implications. Notwithstanding challenges in the relationship on areas including Ukraine, the green transition, and vaccine equity, several initiatives in the area of trade and investments sought to deepen cooperation between the EU and African states in an era of considerable international competition. This includes the EU’s Global Gateway initiative as well as its support for South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership. At the same time, South Africa’s decision to leave the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States showed that the discussion on rationalising the EU’s fragmented institutional frameworks with Africa is far from over.
The EU hoped that the year 2022 would give new positive impetus to its partnership with Africa. The grievances between partners that had intensified in recent years over issues including vaccine equity and energy transitions were to be brought to an end. This narrative of a renewed partnership was featured in the outcome document adopted at the au–eu summit in Brussels on 17 and 18 February, which presented a joint vision towards 2030 with a strong focus on investment. Yet a week after this narrative had been committed to, President Putin of Russia launched an unprovoked military attack on neighbouring Ukraine. The war against uprooted Ukraine not only the international system from one day to the next but also relations between Africa and Europe.
The eruption of inter-state war within Europe is symptomatic of the gradual transformation of the global order. Inter-state war has over the last few decades been rare and has mostly consisted of border clashes (including in Africa, e.g. Eritrea versus Djibouti). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine not only constituted a violation of international law and the sovereignty of a European state: it also highlighted the shifting alliances in a newly emerging international system – shifts that directly affected the relationship between the EU and Africa.
In Africa, the group of countries favouring Russia was not limited to fragile and conflict-affected states or states sanctioned by the West, including Mali, car, Burkina Faso, Libya, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Instead, governments of regional powerhouses, most notably in South Africa, oscillated between proclaimed neutrality and overt support for the Kremlin’s view on international politics. While these observations are noteworthy, one should not forget the historical embeddedness of Russia’s relations with Africa. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union enjoyed the reputation of being a champion of the liberation movement not only in South Africa. Most recent Russian engagement can be described as a return to Africa after a period of disengagement since the turn of the millennium. In South Africa, a mixture of economic, strategic, and historical reasoning came to fruition. While Russian investments on the continent pale in comparison with European fdi, for some African countries they remain important.
India’s foreign minister well articulated the views of African states that voted against, abstained on, or missed the UN resolutions on Ukraine at a conference in Slovakia on 3 June, when he argued that ‘Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems’. Regardless of the reasons, European governments were taken aback by the uneven voting behaviour at the UN of African partners concerning the formal condemnation of the Russian war of aggression. Policy-makers in Brussels and national capitals misjudged African perceptions of the conflict and took support for the UN resolution for granted. For several African governments, anti- colonialism, anti-imperialism, and a seeming commitment to non-alignment justified a reading of the war that in part differed from the dominant narrative in Europe and prohibited the solidarity that Ukraine, as an independent state attacked by its former coloniser, deserved.
Regardless of the underlying reasons, the war has caused new fault-lines in the intercontinental relationship that was meant to be repaired in 2022. While food security constituted another imperative for the grain-importing countries on the African continent, energy security emerged prominently on the European agenda. The severity of these issues notwithstanding, they also pushed thinking towards more resilient and sustainable food and energy production.
Overshadowed by the ongoing war and its impact on global governance, international finance, and energy and food security, the attempt to find global solutions to a global climate crisis continued. Egypt organised the cop27 in November. The last time a cop meeting took place in Africa was in 2016, in Morocco. With Egypt as host nation, this year’s climate negotiations offered a good opportunity for African states to set the agenda and highlight the continent’s needs and challenges when conducting climate policy. While the EU did not move on the proposed global loss and damage fund to be fed by industrial nations (though ultimately it did not block it either), the issue at least made it to the summit outcome document. In parallel, the European Commission announced a ‘Team Europe Initiative’ in which the EU, Denmark, France, Germany, and the Netherlands would bring together new and existing programmes to improve climate change adaptation and strengthen resilience in Africa, which altogether should comprise more than € 1 bn. The programme was part of the EU–Africa ‘Global Gateway’ Investment Package and as such also part of a broader strategic reorientation of the EU’s foreign policy towards Africa, discussed below.
Covid-19
Covid-19 still had a grip on the partnership in 2022. Mask diplomacy and travel bans had already poisoned the relationship between the two continents in 2021. The EU perceived its financial support to go largely unnoticed or unacknowledged by its partners. In 2022, the so-called trips (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) waiver discussions, referring to the international agreement’s provisions allowing developing countries to utilise flexibilities in relation to existing patent rights over vaccines, were ongoing. The debate ensued, following a proposal by India and South Africa, co-sponsored by a majority (44) of African countries, to temporarily waive property rights relating to the prevention, containment, and treatment of Covid-19. While the EU supported the extension of a transitional period for least-developed countries (ldcs) for the implementation of the trips agreement, it remained reluctant to move on the issue of a general temporary waiver for all developing countries – due to reservations voiced by some member states, including Belgium, Estonia, Germany, and Portugal. Limited exceptions notwithstanding, however, ldcs generally do not have sufficient manufacturing capacity to produce and distribute such medication.
To overcome the stalemate, South Africa, India, the US, and the EU met for small group discussions throughout the year. A compromise agreement was reached at the wto in June 2022, which allowed ‘for the swift manufacture and export of Covid-19 vaccines without the consent of the patent owner’. Some observers characterised the compromise as a ‘temporary exception to an export restriction’. Discussions on extending the waiver to diagnostics and therapeutics did not yield any results. In the end, Europe was not willing to set a precedent for an encompassing intellectual property (ip) waiver. Developing countries criticised the inequalities that are, in their eyes, inherent to the international ip system. Neither the vocal ngo community, which stood up in support of a temporary waiver, nor industry associations were happy with the outcome – albeit for different reasons.
In November, the EU then unveiled its Global Health Strategy, which among other things was intended to promote more equitable access to vaccines and medical treatments by strengthening local pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity. In other words, the Commission doubled down on its previous position to prioritise the development of manufacturing capacities. While more an ex-post report of the EU’s past and present engagement in this field than a forward-looking strategy, the 31-page document was rife with references to cooperation with African states. In addition to several Covid-19-related actions and a Team Europe Initiative on sexual and reproductive health and rights, a contentious topic in the relations between Europe and Africa, the strategy also expresses the EU’s support for developing and realising national and regional African public health strategies.
Green and Digital Transition
The green transition featured among the more contentious topics on the au–eu summit agenda – a long-standing discussion, and one that intensified following the cop26 declaration on aligning ‘international public support towards the clean energy transition and out of unabated fossil fuels’. The declaration was signed by the majority of European countries and organisations, including the European Investment Bank. Reflecting the nature of the discussion at the au–eu summit, the outcome document referred to supporting ‘Africa in its transition to foster just and sustainable pathways towards climate neutrality’ while recognising ‘the importance of making use of available natural resources within that energy transition process’. Some formulations (‘due consideration to the priorities and needs of the African countries’) showed sensitivity towards the rising criticism of the EU’s plans to externalise its Green Deal and apply it to the African context. In particular, oil- exporting nations were keen on making a link between fossil fuel extraction and the right to develop. The labelling of gas as a transitional source of energy was a factor around which both blocs seemed to converge.
The EU’s commitment in favour of promoting external investment focused on clean investment soon became a target for the usual ‘do what I say, not as I do’ critique that the EU tends to attract, including from Africa. The need to rapidly move away from dependence on imported fossil fuel from Russia, in some EU member states more or less ‘cold turkey’, resulted in a dash for gas – including in African states where the exploitation of these natural resources was in the process of being expanded. These differences notwithstanding, it should be acknowledged that there are also important divergences within Europe and Africa concerning their energy mix as well as levels of and economic interest in fossil fuels. While Africa’s long-term sustainable energy strategy remained largely undefined and its nationally determined contributions underfunded, it did force significant concessions from the EU and other historic polluters in the form of their backing of the creation of a loss and damage fund, the details of which were postponed to being sorted out at cop28. Beyond the climate negotiations, energy production and security has become a key topic both in and between Europe and Africa and hence an opportunity for further policy convergence.
The eu–au digital partnership was also discussed at the Brussels summit. The two unions agreed to deepen their cooperation on digital issues and to work together to accelerate the digital transformation of Africa. In addition, the eu–au digital partnership supported digital entrepreneurship in Africa by providing funding and technical assistance to African start-ups and entrepreneurs. These initiatives aim to create an enabling environment for digital entrepreneurship in Africa, which will help to drive economic growth and create new job opportunities.
On 18 March, the au Commission and the European Commission invited partners to a virtual multi-stakeholder forum that was centred on the twin (green and digital) transition and advertised under the title ‘Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development in Africa’. Participants, including au commissioner Amani Abou-Zeid and EU commissioner Jutta Urpilainen, underlined the importance of digital technologies, data, and innovation and committed to additional investments in the sector. As at previous events, the declarations remained rather general and there was little engagement with the actual effects of digital technologies on economic growth in Africa.
The EU continued to emphasise its regulatory power and to advance standardisation by funding projects in ‘African and Neighbourhood countries’. It acknowledged, however, that a normative agenda alone – also known as the ‘human-centric approach to digital’ – was insufficient. Any policy needs to be accompanied by massive investments in order to resonate in partner countries. In this context, the EU announced a € 820 m investment – a combination of grants and loans – to support Nigeria’s digitalisation strategy. The EU’s support in this area was increasingly bundled and presented with related projects and initiatives, as well as sometimes implemented jointly with related efforts by EU member states. Such collective efforts were referred to as Team Europe Initiatives. At the time of writing, around 25% of the approximately 180 country Team Europe Initiatives and 28% of regional Team Europe Initiatives were dedicated to science, technology, innovation, and digital infrastructure.
Peace and Security
Several open conflicts and lingering crises continued to shape Africa’s security landscape throughout 2022. Simultaneously, a war broke out at the EU’s borders, with far-reaching consequences, including for African peace and security.
For the first time ever, the European Peace Facility (epf), which had been operational since July 2021, was used to procure lethal military equipment in support of another country at war. The epf has a total financial ceiling of € 5.7 bn for 2021–27, and is funded as an intergovernmental fund that exists outside the EU budget through annual contributions by EU member states. The strong focus on Ukraine, with decisions adding up to € 3.1 bn in epf spending in 2022 alone, brought back to the table elements of the discussions that led to the creation of the fund. Prior to the establishment of the epf, the EU supported African peace operations through the African Peace Facility (apf), which allowed the earmarking of funds for the continent. Contrary to its predecessor, the epf has global aspirations. These global aspirations, paired with Russia’s attack on Ukraine, had an immediate impact on African peace and security. This is particularly problematic since the epf was designed not to respond to war in Europe but rather to finance the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp).
Stable commitments to the African Peace and Security Architecture would require a front-loading of funds or alternatively an increase of the overall budget. In other words, funding for African peace and stabilisation mechanisms can no longer be taken for granted, which for instance could further undermine the EU’s engagement in the Sahel. In December, the European Council decided to increase the instrument’s overall financial ceiling by € 2 bn in 2023 and allow for further increases of up to € 5.5 bn until 2027.
Following the suspension of budgetary support in 2020, relations between the EU and the Ethiopian government had cooled. The EU continued to provide humanitarian and development assistance throughout the conflict, yet it condemned Addis Ababa on the grounds of human rights violations against the people of Tigray. Throughout, the EU remained a proponent of a rapid cessation of hostilities and called upon both conflict parties to engage in negotiations. It further called upon Ethiopia’s regional neighbours – most notably Eritrea – to contribute to a de-escalation of the conflict. The peace agreement that was signed between the central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (tplf) opened the path for a more encompassing re-engagement between the EU and Ethiopia. The thawing of the relationship following the peace accord was accelerated in particular by the relatively softer position on Ethiopia that France and Germany have taken. Strategic thinking and the fear of ‘losing Ethiopia to China’ might have informed that stance to some extent. Commenting on the peace accord, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs pointed to ‘stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity’ as well as ‘peaceful development’ and the role of neighbouring countries, namely Eritrea, as key elements for a lasting peace.
au–eu Relations
Given that the last au–eu summit was held in Abidjan in December 2017, over four years and a global pandemic back in time, the convening of the summit in Brussels on 17–18 February was an important achievement in itself. The summit was confronted both ex ante by the tensions between the two groups that arose during the pandemic, a combination of vaccine inequity and unilateral EU travel bans, and ex post by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began a week after the summit. While the summit was considered a success in terms of bringing together the heads of state of 27 EU member states and 40 of their African counterparts, with both groups agreeing on a ‘renewed partnership’, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine soon showed the challenges faced in realising these lofty ambitions.
Another key feature of the summit was the presentation of an ‘Africa Investment Package’ with a funding target of € 150 bn in investment, which Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen had first announced in Senegal a week before the summit. The investment package is part of the EU’s ‘Global Gateway Infrastructure Initiative’ and is intended to be composed of successfully mobilised or otherwise supported public and private investment by the EU in key infrastructure of African states and regions. The target further elucidated that Europe’s package for Africa amounted to exactly half of the total ‘Global Gateway’ initiative, launched in December 2021 with the target of mobilising up to € 300 bn in the period 2021–27.
Notwithstanding the convergence between the EU and au on the theme of investment, with both for years having indicated the need to move beyond ‘aid’ and ‘donor – recipient relations’, the adoption of similar investment packages at earlier summits whose effects and results have not been adequately monitored and evaluated to date led the EU’s plans to be met with a healthy dose of scepticism. The latter was also shown in reported discussions in the run-up to the summit on how its commitments would be monitored and followed up. While the EU institutions indicated a preference for entrusting this role to the Europe-Africa Foundation, a consortium of European and African organisations that, with the assistance of EU funding, had organised various engagements in preparation of the summit and beyond, the au disagreed and the outcome document stated that monitoring and follow-up would be done ‘on a regular basis via existing au-eu structures’.
Roughly nine months after the high-profile summit, a distinctly low-profile Commission to Commission’ meeting took place on 28 November 2022 in Brussels. In addition to the European Commission president and the au Commission chairperson, the meeting convened 20 EU commissioners, the au commission deputy chairperson and five au commissioners to review progress in promoting the commitments made at the summit earlier that year. A short communiqué was adopted, with the most eye-catching paragraph describing how the two commissions noted the economic effects of the war in Ukraine and referred to their ‘national positions as expressed in the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly’. The paragraph closed with the European Commission alone condemning ‘in the strongest possible terms the war of aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’.
West and Central Africa
The spillover of instability from Mali to its neighbours to the south continued in 2022. In early January, Burkina Faso experienced a military coup during which President Roch Kaboré was ousted and the constitution suspended. His successor’s fate was short-lived as well. Only eight months later, junta leader Paul-Henri Damiba was removed from office by groups of soldiers, after having failed to re-establish the promised levels of stability. In reaction, the European Parliament formally condemned the military coup on 20 October and called for an immediate return to constitutional order and a civilian government. This quest translated into a call for elections by July 2024, which the EU was ready to support by intensifying its engagement. Beyond that, which can be described as the European standard canon in response to military coups, the Parliament also read the instability in light of ever-increasing geopolitical competition. Members of the European Parliament (meps) were particularly worried about increased Russian activism and the risk that another country could overly rely on the services provided by the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
The year continued to be marked by instability in the Sahel and diplomatic low points between Mali and the EU and its member states. On the humanitarian front, the EU increased its funding for Mali to € 47.3 m, compared with € 36.5 m in humanitarian aid in 2021. The money was to be disbursed in six priority areas of engagement: (i) food, (ii) basic essential items/emergency shelter, (iii) health and nutrition, including access to primary and secondary healthcare, (iv) protection assistance and psychosocial support, (v) education for children, and (vi) humanitarian coordination and access to remote locations for humanitarian workers. The EU’s humanitarian assistance to the entire Sahel region stood at € 240 m in 2022.
In terms of electoral observation, the EU organised a follow-up mission to Nigeria in the first quarter of 2022 with the objective of assessing the implementation of the recommendations issued by the 2019 EU Election Observation Mission (eom). The follow-up mission postulated a lack of progress, with only two of the 30 recommendations having been fully implemented and another 11 partially implemented, according to EU sources. The follow-up mission was considered indicative and a support measure prior to the general elections scheduled to take place in 2023.
With regard to the Lake Chad region, the Commission provided € 189.5 m in humanitarian support to vulnerable and affected communities in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. In Cameroon, the EU also supported the World Food Programme during the same period with an additional € 4.2 m in response to emergency food needs in the north-west and south-west regions.
Beyond humanitarian assistance, the EU continued to be active in the region following its Team Europe approach and adapted focus on infrastructure investments. The eib’s international lending branch, eib Global, backed the expansion of fibre-optic networks in the drc. Through its first quasi-equity investment (a financial instrument that combines features of debt and equity) amounting to € 10 m, eib Global sought to improve the connectivity of more than 2.5 m people living in remote eastern areas of drc.
On 25 September, voters in São Tomé and Príncipe peacefully elected the legislative assembly, district assemblies, and the regional assembly in the Autonomous Region of Príncipe. The EU deployed an electoral observation mission to São Tomé and Príncipe between 25 August and 19 October to monitor the general elections that took place on 25 September. The mission concluded that the elections ‘took place in a context of general respect for fundamental freedoms and nominally independent democratic institution’, while politicised interpenetrations of the legal-electoral framework, a limited involvement of civil society, and hampered access to information remained as areas for further improvement. Generally considered stable, the island nation suffered from a failed coup attempt in November, only ten days after the swearing in of the new government. A firm condemnation by the EU followed in the immediate aftermath. Portugal sent a team of investigators and police to examine, together with the national judicial authorities, inter alia the extrajudicial killings of suspected coup plotters at the hands of security forces.
East Africa
East Africa’s economic powerhouse, Kenya, held general elections on 9 August. It was the fifth general election in the country to have been monitored by a large EU observation mission, this time involving a total of 182 observers from the 27 EU member states, Canada, Switzerland, and Norway – as well as a seven-member European Parliament delegation. Although the report observed that many of the recommendations presented by the 2017 observation mission remain to be implemented, and while the 2022 mission assessed that improvements are needed to strengthen transparency and trust, the mission noted many positive elements, which in its assessment confirmed ‘Kenya’s democratic status’. A few weeks later, Kenya’s functioning rule of law was confirmed as Kenya’s supreme court of justice validated the election results, which had been challenged by the losing candidate. The EU’s cautious approach of not congratulating President Ruto until the court reached its verdict almost a month later did not provide a smooth start to relations with the new president, who was already weary of Western influence.
The war in Tigray continued to prevent the return to strong cooperation between the EU and the federal government of Ethiopia, previously one of the largest recipients of EU development funding in Africa, with direct support to the country’s development strategy through its treasury remaining on hold. Instead, the EU decided in July to spend a comparatively small budget of € 81.5 m on health- and education-related projects, to be delivered by ngos and multilateral and EU member state development agencies. In the meantime, a multi-annual strategy on its cooperation with Ethiopia remained to be adopted.
On 22 December, the EU and its member states issued a congratulatory statement to the parties for signing the Agreement for Lasting Peace through a Permanent Cessation of Hostilities (CoHA) and its associated declaration for implementing it, while commending the au High-Level Panel for its successful mediation. The EU declaration further emphasised the EU’s continued support through development assistance and humanitarian aid, while noting that the implementation of the agreement would allow the EU to fully resume its development and economic support.
Southern Africa
As Southern Africa is only region in Africa with which the EU has a full epa in force, economic and trade cooperation continued to be a key focus between the EU and several of the countries in the region. As one key indication, the EU signed its first ever Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreement (sifa) with the Republic of Angola on 18 November. The EU declared that it was seeking to conclude similar agreements with other African partners, although it remained unclear which ones, and at what scale. Angola also agreed to enter into negotiations with the EU and the six sadc members to join their Economic Partnership Agreement, which entered into force in October 2016 (with Mozambique joining in February 2018). As with the concluded sifa, the background was that Angola was projected to ‘graduate’ from its status as as an ldc in 2017 – and thus also from eligibility for the EU’s unilateral ‘Everything But Arms’ trade preferences – and therefore needs to look into how to sustain and diversify its trade with the EU.
Another noteworthy development was the strategic partnership that the EU concluded with Namibia on the margins of cop27. The MoU signed described the desired partnership on sustainable raw materials and renewable hydrogen, setting out an agreement to develop a detailed road-map on cooperation in these areas during 2023/24, while in parallel the eib signed an agreement with the Namibian government on providing loans to support the planned investments. The MoU was first discussed between the Namibian and Commission presidents on the margins of the au–eu summit and was linked by the EU to its ‘Global Gateway’ initiative.
The year also saw national assembly elections in Angola (24 August) and Lesotho (7 October), with the EU dispatching an election observation mission to the latter country. While the EU spokesperson’s statement on the Angolan elections took note of the results, expressed awareness of complaints by the opposition parties and civil society, and encouraged them to address their concerns through legal means, its mission presented a 72-page report on the elections in Lesotho. The report offered a detailed assessment of the elections, with seven priority recommendations, among others for the strengthening and adequate resourcing of the election commission and making the voter registry more inclusive. The report shows that observation missions remain a key tool for the EU and its partners to maintain a dialogue on strengthening democracy, yet also one where the trade-off with the EU’s own geostrategic interests may become increasingly apparent over time.
Post-Cotonou
The date 15 April marked a full year since the EU and the members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (oacps) had initialled an international agreement that their respective chief negotiators, respectively European commissioner for international partnerships Jutta Urpilainen and Togo’s minister of foreign affairs Robert Dussey, had been negotiating since September 2018. The new agreement should replace the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (cpa), which entered into force in April 2003 and introduced considerable reforms to the relations between the EU and the group of states, of which perhaps the negotiation of epas with regional groups of states was best known and most controversial. Another key feature of the partnership, the intergovernmental edf that funded cooperation on the priorities identified in the cpa, was incorporated into the EU’s general budget under the Neighbourhood, International Cooperation and Development/Global Europe (ndici/ge) instrument as adopted in June 2021 and made subject to its rules and processes.
While the partnership’s influence thus declined in the area of trade and development finance, the negotiations of the new agreement resulted in more ambitious provisions on migration and development, including operational agreements on return and readmission. Yet in view of the ‘mixed’ competence nature of the agreement, covering the competencies of both the EU and its member states, EU member states would need to unanimously adopt the agreement before it can be signed and ratified. During 2022 this unanimity could not be found, and towards the end of the year, EU actors became more outspoken in indicating that Hungary was the blocking member – and the agreement’s migration provision the formal reason given. Due to this limbo situation, the cpa – which originally was set to expire on 28 February 2020 and had already been extended twice – was extended a third time to the 30 June 2023.
Meanwhile, the oacps also faced turbulent times as its influential member – and largest financial contributor to the permanent secretariat after the EU–South Africa decided to leave the grouping. Though it was not explicitly stated, the government most probably thought there was no reason to stay in the grouping from a cost – benefit perspective – instead favouring interacting with the EU through a bilateral trade, development, and cooperation agreement as well as its epa membership. The oacps meanwhile convened a largely overlooked summit of heads of state and government in Angola from 6 to 9 December and welcomed the Maldives as a new member, thus restoring the number of oacps members to 79. Yet the organisation itself and its relations with the EU continued to face an uncertain future.