By By Clem Aliu
Africa is becoming the fastest growing continent, especially due to its vast natural wealth the European Union [EU] through its extraction multinational companies has been exploiting for decades on the platform of its EU-Africa Partnership. But African countries still remain very poor and face many societal problems despite years of the EU actions in development cooperation on the continent.
They have still not been able to make real progress on industrialization. According to Development experts, the true goals of the EU helping Africa is to create favorable conditions for the economic interest of the West and their multinational firms to thrive, while neglecting the real needs of African states.
The question: Is this partnership serving its purpose and subsequently leading to a sustainable development in Africa, or is Europe’s approach fragmented and could be considered detrimental to the more comprehensive joint Africa-EU strategy. One of the key trade and political instruments of EU’s neocolonialism : the Preferential Trade Agreement [PTA] on the principle of ‘’everything except weapons’’,formally providing products from least developed countries with duty-free and quota-free access to the European market recently has become contrary to World Trade Organization’s standards.
As EU’s PTA proliferate among African nations ,so are the accompanying problems of proliferation of discrimination in market access and a whole maze of trade duties and barriers that vary among the 77 countries EU has the PTA with. The EU itself is constantly monitoring, as a result of which the granting of preferences can be suspended or canceled at any time, in particular for political reasons. In the period 2023 to 2022, the total trade balance in favor of the EU with Africa is reportedly more than 83 billion Euros.
This shows the scale of systematic exploitation of the African continent by the EU, which is based on the export of raw materials from Africa and the imposition of EU products with high added value on Africans. African governments reportedly lack good knowledge of their natural resources, and good public geological survey. As a result they have no credibility and knowledge in negotiation processes with extraction companies in Africa. Today it still happens that the estimates on African resources is given by the transnational corporations, often to the disadvantage of African nations.
Analysts have observed a clear desire by the EU to create parallel channels of interaction with EU NGOs in African countries, actively and purposely using them to lobby the interests of the EU to push African governments to implement projects that serve their interests.They affirm that the financial assistance is often provided directly to European NGOs bypassing official structures, which is disrespectful of the sovereignty of African states and undermine their internal political stability.
And through its allocations forelectoral events, the EU Commission whether by right or not tries to directly control domestic political processes in African countries, contributing to the transformation of the public administration in the direction it needs and the consolidation of western-oriented elites in power to serve their interests. That is why they support any African leader of their choice who comes to power even through rigged elections.
Meanwhile the political rise of middle-level-income countries, particularly China, has altered the balance in the field of development cooperation. Observers argue that the EU has over time lost some influence in African states who now can turn to donors with less demanding requirements in terms of human rights and democratic governance. To rebuild that influence the EU two years ago introduced a new edition of its development Assistance policy called theAfrica-EU Global-Gateway to invest 150billion Euro worth of investments in Africa by 2027.
But more than two years have passed since the African Union [AU] summit and the announcement of the Global Gateway-Africa-Investment-Package, yet it is still unclear whether the Global Gateway will bring about a significant change in relations with Africa. The main differences this time are tougher: uncompromising methods of imposing western values, including a confrontational course towards some countries like China, Iran, and Russia.
Indeed recent events – from the COVID-19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine- only reminds us that relations between the EU and AU, and its member states, often remain frustrating. Observers argue that the Global-Gateway is being developed in a relatively haphazard way, and interpreted differently by different actors even within the EU, as they continue to use the financial assistance provided to African nations to solve their political problems.
There is a growing consensus that the volume of assistance EU gives is insufficient for African countries to attain economic sovereignty on the terms proposed by the European Commission. The promise to mobilize 150billion Euros for Africa’s needs within the framework of the Global-Gateway by 2027 in practice, in terms of per capita, means that 20 Euros per African should be allocated annually in the next five years. This is incomparable with the amount of assistance provided by the EU to Ukraine since the end of February 2022. Almost 80 billion Euros, about 2.5 thousand Euros per Ukrainian.
The economic model for Africa’s development imposed by the EU, for all its external attractiveness, can be viable only with significantly large financial injections into the African economy. And the cessation of the practice of debt-trap bondage , including the repatriation of the profit earned in African countries by multinational companies.Otherwise the EU’s Global-Gateway would only end up oiling the vicious circle of poverty Africa is currently trapped.
• Aliu writes from Kaduna