LUANDA, Angola — European leaders descended on Luanda this week for the EU-African Union summit with a clear, urgent goal: secure access to Africa’s critical minerals and shore up fragile supply chains as global geopolitical tensions rise.
“Africa and Europe are partners of choice, bound by common interests and priorities and shared values,” EU Council President António Costa wrote on social media as the summit began. “In a turbulent world, our commitment to build a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future — and to defend multilateralism — must guide our actions.”
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The language of partnership sat uneasily beside reminders of history. Angola has just marked 50 years of independence from Portugal, after roughly four centuries of colonial rule and later a brutal 40-year civil war. The scars remain visible: the country is among the most heavily mined in the world and, despite enormous natural wealth, visible poverty persists in Luanda’s streets.
“We earn less than a hundred US dollars a month,” a Luanda tour operator told RTÉ News. “We don’t live, we survive.” He expressed hope that European delegations would bring investment “instead of the money going overseas.”
That hope underpins much of the summit’s urgency. Africa holds the minerals that power everything from batteries to wind turbines — the source material for an energy transition driven by policy and geopolitics. The continent is home to vast reserves of cobalt, copper, lithium and manganese, and the summit provided a forum for tying those assets to secure European supply chains.
Demographics add to the continent’s strategic value. Delegates repeatedly noted projections that Africa will be home to a quarter of the world’s population by 2050 and could exceed four billion people by the end of the century. “I think the potential, if you look two to three decades ahead, is Africa,” Taoiseach Micheál Martin said, citing population growth and prospective market size.
For Brussels and member states, the immediate goal is less ideological than practical: diversify suppliers and reduce dependence on a small set of partners after recent shocks such as U.S. trade measures and China’s controls on certain exports. European officials have pursued bilateral deals and partnerships on critical minerals — a scramble that now converges on Luanda.
But analysts warn the picture of cooperation masks deep asymmetries and risks. “I believe there has been less progress than the EU hoped for,” said Adrian Joseph of the South African Institute of International Affairs, noting that roadmaps tied to recent agreements are often not made public. “A lack of transparency around these agreements is naturally not only an implementation problem, but also an accountability issue.”
That opacity matters for African publics and for environmental and labor protections. Joseph added a caution that without serious reforms, extraction “could occur at the expense of citizens and the environment in African countries.”
African leaders leveraged the summit to push a blunt counternarrative: access to minerals must be matched by preferential market access, investment in processing on the continent, and trade terms that promote value retention at home. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, chairperson of the AU Commission, urged “more balanced trade partnerships,” calling for European investment in mineral processing and the lifting of tariffs that hamper African exports to European markets.
Those demands reflect lessons from decades of resource extraction: raw materials exported cheaply, finished goods imported at higher value. China’s long-standing presence in Africa — from infrastructure projects to deep involvement in mining — looms over the summit. Luanda’s new international airport, built with Chinese involvement, is a visible symbol of that influence.
European nations, facing competition from Beijing and the geopolitical interests of Russia and others, hope to offer an alternative: capital, technology and regulatory frameworks that align with green transition goals. But African governments are not powerless clients; they can play suitors against one another. “It is about which partners can provide the best value proposition to African countries seeking investments in their mining sectors,” Joseph said. “These countries are not eager to become entangled in the geopolitical tensions between the US and China.”
The political arithmetic is complex. Europe needs supplies; African states want industrialization and jobs; external powers seek influence. The intersection of those interests creates opportunities for mutually beneficial deals — but also fertile ground for extractive bargains dressed as development assistance.
Transparency and enforceable conditions will be central tests. Without clear public roadmaps, civil society and watchdogs lack the tools to hold partners accountable for environmental safeguards, revenue sharing and worker protections. For countries like Angola, still grappling with the legacy of war and landmines, poorly governed extractive booms could compound social strains rather than ease them.
What happened in Luanda this week is unlikely to resolve these tensions. Summit communiqués and side agreements may chart intentions, but the hard work comes in the clauses and the contracts, in public oversight and in the capacity of African states to enforce terms that favor local value addition.
For European policymakers, the choice is stark: pursue quick access to raw materials with minimal conditions and risk repeating patterns of unequal exchange, or back a slower, more politically demanding approach that invests in African processing, opens markets and builds institutions — the latter offering a more durable and equitable supply-chain resilience.
For African leaders, the summit was a reminder that leverage exists but must be converted into long-term gains: jobs, industrial capacity and fiscal revenues that flow into public services. As Mahmoud Ali Youssouf framed it, the bargain is not merely about minerals; it is about reshaping trade so that Africa captures a larger slice of the value it creates.
The coming months will show whether the diplomatic warmth in Luanda translates into transparent deals and structural change, or whether history repeats itself in a new guise: raw materials flowing out, profits flowing elsewhere, and daily life for many Angolans and other Africans remaining defined by survival rather than prosperity.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
