EU policy with Africa between geopolitics, development, and interregionalism

The European Union has been in a process of recalibrating its trade and external investment policies, as well as development and related policies with the Global South, which involves a shift to private investment in multilateral development financing, as well as moving away from development to international partnership and geopolitics more broadly. The paper seeks to shed light on this shift in the EU’s policy with the Global South and Africa in particular. The emergence of the African Union as a potent interlocutor pushing against EU regional integration efforts and for continental integration, and the rise of competitors, especially China’s investment engagement and Russia’s role in security challenge the post-colonial continuity of EU policy. This paper asks how the EU has responded to this challenge, focusing on the Global Gateway as a geopolitical investment tool responding to the Chinese BRI, and the re-calibrated EU-Africa relations in the Samoa Agreement.