The EU–India Deal Is Done. Africa Must Be Next

by Rajnish Singh

Europe’s strategic autonomy will be shaped less in Brussels or Berlin, and more in African capitals. The continent’s countries now sit at the centre of the EU’s economic security, energy transition and geopolitical needs.

With the rules‑based order weakening and the big powers using economic pressure more openly, Europe can no longer fall back on legacy partnerships or development‑era talking points. The choice is blunt: build serious trade alliances with African states or watch China, Russia and the Gulf consolidate the influence Brussels says it wants.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s warning at Davos, that the old international order “is gone and will not return”, captured the shift already felt across much of the Global South.

For Europe, the message was uncomfortable. Middle powers negotiating alone “negotiate from weakness,” and the EU’s breakthrough with India, while significant, is nowhere near enough to diversify supply chains.

By 2050, Africa’s population is projected to reach around 2.5 billion people, roughly a quarter of humanity. But the continent’s real leverage lies in what the world needs for its green and digital transitions: critical minerals, energy and strategic infrastructure.

Take cobalt. around 74 per cent of the world’s supply is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a metal essential for lithium batteries powering electric vehicles, smartphones and electrical storage systems. But roughly 77 per cent of global cobalt refining capacity is in China, meaning that even when raw material comes from Africa, the value added, and the strategic choke point, is elsewhere.

That is precisely the kind of single-point dependency Carney had in mind when he warned about economic coercion. However, Brussels has started to respond. Under its Global Gateway strategy, which aims to mobilise up to €300 billion in investments between 2021 and 2027,  the EU has signed strategic partnerships on critical raw materials with the DRC and Zambia, and backed the Lobito Corridor to connect mining regions in southern DRC and northern Zambia to Angolan ports. EU officials insist this is a strategic investment, not development aid, and a deliberate attempt to shift value chains away from China while supporting local processing.

But the gap between ambition and reality is still wide. Between 2016 and 2022, almost three‑quarters of greenfield investment in sub‑Saharan Africa went into extraction, with only a quarter into processing or manufacturing.

Africa continues to export ore while others capture the value. If Europe wants to be taken seriously as a partner, its trade and investment plans will need to help reverse that pattern, not entrench it.

The EU–India deal shows Brussels can negotiate with geopolitical intent when it chooses to: embedding standards, diversifying supply chains and deepening political alignment. Applying the same logic to Africa means co‑developing value chains, from cobalt and copper processing in the DRC and Zambia to green hydrogen and renewable projects across North and West Africa.

Energy security adds another layer. As Europe moves away from Russian hydrocarbons, new gas projects in Senegal and Mauritania, combined with renewable infrastructure, could form the basis of a more balanced long‑term partnership rather than another cycle of extraction.

Meanwhile, Europe’s competitors are not waiting. China, Russia and Gulf states are offering infrastructure, security cooperation and market access with fewer political conditions and far faster timelines. If Brussels sticks to slow frameworks and nostalgic assumptions, it risks losing strategic ground in a region central to its own green transition.

Carney’s message was blunt: nostalgia is not a strategy. Europe’s ability to act as a genuine middle‑power coalition builder will be tested not just in its ties with India but in whether it can forge deeper, fairer economic partnerships with African states. The future of European autonomy will be shaped as much in Kinshasa, Lusaka and Dakar as in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Madrid or Rome.