The EU's competing strategic interests in Africa: Priorities for the next MFF

Last month, the European Commission fired its first shot in view of the EU’s next long-term budget, the MFF for 2028-2034. Under its external action heading, the document only makes a short, diplomatic reference to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) before moving on quickly to call for “more targeted and impactful financing” and “better alignment with the EU’s strategic interests” in view of “mutually beneficial partnerships”. The Commission has abandoned the recent illusory – if not hypocritical – obsession with 'equal partnerships', but how does it understand mutually beneficial partnerships?

The starting point seems to be “to deliver on EU strategic and economic security interests”, which includes trade policies and access to energy and critical materials, climate and migration issues. These areas show significant connections between domestic and foreign policies and therefore require greater coherence in the financing of both, as well as enhanced complementarity with member states.

The Team Europe spirit, launched in response to COVID-19, and the Global Gateway strategy, aimed at leading a “new wave” of infrastructural investments around the world, are presented as key tools to maximise the effectiveness and visibility of the EU’s global cooperation efforts while defending its strategic interests.

How compatible are these EU interests with Africa’s priorities?

The EU promotes a balanced approach to its migration policies. However, in Africa, the perception is that the EU places excessive focus on border controls and the negotiation of return and reintegration agreements for irregular migrants, rather than on developing legal pathways or addressing the root causes of migration and instability.

The EU should also consider how to avoid turning its hunger for critical raw materials into a ‘new scramble for Africa’. Africa expects support for local value addition and green industrial transformation, as well as a credible commitment to fighting the illegal export of ‘blood materials’ that fuel conflicts, notably by effectively enforcing full traceability of critical primary commodities in global supply chains.

Finally, the EU should seek ways to share the burden of climate change mitigation and adaptation fairly, given that Africa only marginally contributed to global warming. The commitments made under the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact have been slow to materialise, and those made reluctantly in Sharm el-Sheikh, Dubai or Baku are perceived as underwhelming. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and zero-deforestation regulations are seen as unilateral, protectionist measures rather than efforts to mitigate climate change and level the playing field.

At a moment when the US is abandoning the rest of the world and partners are increasingly disappointed by the quality of China’s development efforts and its hawkish creditor behaviour, a window opens for the EU to defend its position as a trusted long-term partner. But this requires the EU to preserve its unique selling point by promoting a rights- and values-driven external policy. This includes fostering “sustainable economic, social and environmental development of developing countries with the primary aim of eradicating poverty”, as outlined in the Treaty on the European Union (Article 21d), rather than moving towards an approach that is too transactional and self-interested.

Africa is young and rapidly urbanising. Its young people want peace and decent jobs. This requires sound economic governance, respect for the rule of law and human rights, and democratic accountability. Defending and promoting these core values are therefore a prerequisite for the EU to support its economic interests and security in a consistent and credible way.

How can the EU reconcile these objectives in the MFF design?

When designing the next MFF, the European Commission should answer a number of questions – regardless of the funding involved.

First, how can the EU balance needs- and performance-based criteria in aid allocations? This trade-off has two dimensions:

1. How much funding should be earmarked for humanitarian assistance and the links between relief, reconstruction and development, considering the increasing number and intensity of natural disasters, driven by climate change, demographic pressure and environmental degradation, but also as a result of conflicts, corruption and bad governance?

2. Within the programmable funds for development, how to reconcile the poverty eradication goals (prioritising needs, least developed countries and situations of fragility) with the objective of advancing core EU values (prioritising like-minded countries open to reform to improve governance and consolidate democracy, the rule of law and human rights)? And how to take into account the objective of encouraging gradual integration into the world economy (prioritising countries with high economic potential as export markets, suppliers of critical raw materials or investment destinations for nearshoring or friendshoring, especially when striving for more strategic autonomy)?

The Global Gateway strategy and the blending and guarantee schemes under the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+) respond to this last objective, but it remains unclear to what extent they meet the needs- and values-based criteria. In addition, countries in fragile situations may lack a credible pipeline of projects or the institutional capacity to prepare them for Global Gateway funding.

Second, how can the EU balance the need for predictability with the need for flexibility? Currently, flexibility is ensured in two ways:

1. The programming exercise is split in two periods, with an initial country allocation until mid-term (2024), followed by the possibility of an additional allocation and adjustments to the programming documents.

2. Significant envelopes have been built in for rapid response actions and to ‘cushion’ emerging challenges and priorities.  

Unfortunately, both flexibility mechanisms have failed. The mid-term review faced budgetary cuts and focused primarily on financial absorption capacity under the Global Gateway, while the flexibility envelopes – which had no geographic earmarking – were largely exhausted to meet needs resulting from the Russian war in Ukraine, COVID-19 and the refugee crisis in the Middle East.

Based on this experience and assuming the seven-yearly budget cycle is maintained, the mid-term review methodology will have to be agreed upon in advance and fully integrated into the initial programming exercise. Additionally, the flexibility envelopes may need to be increased and at least partially earmarked thematically or geographically, with tighter criteria for their mobilisation.

Third, combining above concerns, how can the EU balance programmable and demand-driven development funding? Demand-driven approaches can be conceived as thematic facilities, accessible only through submission of project proposals based on pre-defined procedures and selection criteria, similar to the existing EFSD+ or Erasmus+ facilities. Such thematic facilities could cover the full range of SDGs.

When well-designed, these facilities are performance-driven, stimulating competition and peer pressure. Significant capacity-building pillars can be included in the facilities to help eligible and willing countries prepare pipelines of ‘bankable’ projects. Funding differentiation would then occur based on countries’ commitment to reform in selected priority areas (positive conditionality).

Finally, as such demand-driven facilities must be conceived at the regional or global level, how to balance between national (programmed), regional (in this case, sub-Saharan African or Africa-wide) and global envelopes? The current split between North and sub-Saharan Africa, with some co-funded continental and cross-regional actions, is perceived by many in Africa as a colonial legacy which, perhaps unintendedly, is weakening its continental integration processes and the EU’s (whole-of) Africa strategy.

The EU will need to rebalance its relationship with Africa

Despite the so far untested effectiveness of the Global Gateway and the EFSD+, the European Commission’s communication on the next MFF suggests an implicit preference for maximising regional, demand-driven and EU interest-driven investment facilities. Experience shows that such a one-sided approach may backfire and undermine the successful preparation of the seventh EU-Africa Summit scheduled for later in 2025. It could also hinder the EU’s long-term geopolitical objectives in Africa and its public diplomacy efforts to win over ‘hearts and minds’. 

According to the 2016 Global Strategy for the EU’s foreign and security policy, defending and promoting the EU’s values is in its interest. The same applies to promoting sustainable development, and good economic and political governance. Facing a disintegrating world order, some Realpolitik is unavoidable, which is why European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen increasingly emphasises the far less voluntaristic Global Strategy concept of ‘principled pragmatism’. As the next MFF is prepared, it will be important to ensure that pragmatism doesn’t overtake principles, undermining the EU’s standing in Africa. 

The views are those of the author and not necessarily those of ECDPM.

Our work on the MFF

Explore our dossier featuring ECDPM’s work on the new multiannual financial framework and the budget negotiations, along with insights into current and past frameworks.