Colonialism is alive and well in the EU
Mandira Bagwandeen – Stellenbosch University; New South Institute
Jelena Vidojević – New South Institute
Photo: African Union
The recent 7th African Union-European Union (AU-EU) Summit held in November 2025 in Luanda, Angola, was, by all accounts, a masterclass in political choreography. Two continental blocs, the latter rich in capital and historical influence (though that influence seems to be fading), the former bursting with youth and unrealised potential, met to reaffirm their “unique and strategic partnership” and celebrate 25 years of formal relations. Yet behind the bold statements of solidarity and partnership and the lofty promises of the EU’s Global Gateway, the core fault lines that have historically undermined this relationship remain unaddressed.
If the aim of the AU-EU partnership is truly to foster genuine developmental outcomes in Africa, the Luanda summit should be viewed less as a celebratory milestone and more as a stark reminder of the EU’s longstanding hypocrisy in its engagement with Africa. More importantly, it highlights the urgent need for African nations to actively pursue ‘Look East’ policies that provide practical, results-oriented alternatives to the EU’s conditional, often self-interested engagement.
The EU’s portrayal of the AU-EU relationship as a “partnership of equals” is contradicted by the priorities that dominated the summit agenda. For example, the Summit’s joint declaration prominently highlighted commitments to peace and security, emphasising support for the African Peace and Security Architecture and the management of regional conflicts. While stability is essential for economic growth, the EU’s main focus often seems driven by its own security and geopolitical concerns, particularly in respect of reducing irregular migration flows and containing the spread of extremist groups that could destabilise key resource suppliers.
This (European) security-first, (African) development-second approach often leads to a trust deficit between many African countries and the EU. Europe’s interventions too often end up, at best, maintaining stabilitocracies in Africa: regimes that focus on surface-level order and cooperation with external partners rather than accountable, democratic governance. At worst, these interventions prop up authoritarian leaders through political backing, security assistance, or selective engagement, which weakens democratic-leaning groups. This was evident in Sudan under the Khartoum Process (officially the EU-Horn of Africa Migration Routes Initiative), launched in 2014 to address migration-related issues and challenges. Essentially, the summit seems to have become a platform for the EU to outsource its continental security concerns, rather than a space for collaboratively developing African socio-economic development strategies.
The AU consistently highlights the urgent issues of unfair risk premiums imposed on African economies and the heavy burden of high debt-servicing costs. These are key barriers to development, preventing African governments from raising affordable capital to invest in healthcare, education, and infrastructure. The Luanda summit did not achieve a significant breakthrough on the main financial issues. Instead, the emphasis remained largely on European-led financing schemes, such as the Global Gateway, a $150 billion investment commitment often criticised as an attempt to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. While the funding is appreciated, the model risks reinforcing the unequal donor-recipient relationship. It rarely addresses Africa’s main demand: easier access to capital markets and a genuine recognition of the unfair global financial architecture that penalises the continent.
Essentially, the AU-EU Summit risks becoming an annual event of symbolic gestures that conceals a stagnant, underperforming relationship. For the partnership to genuinely move beyond the aid-and-security paradigm, the EU must face a tough truth: African nations are no longer as willing as they once were to be pressured into accepting development finance tied to Western-aligned political-ideological conditions.
Without a genuine, transformative partnership from Brussels, the strategic calculation for African leaders is clear: continue to pivot East. The rationale for African countries to pursue ‘Look East’ policies and strategies is not ideological; it is deeply pragmatic and development-focused.
Unlike the EU, which often ties aid and investment to political conditions on governance, Eastern partners, most notably China and, increasingly, India, Russia, and the Gulf States, offer finance with a central focus on tangible and productive industrial and transport infrastructure, typically without imposing stringent requirements to reform political and/or economic systems in line with their own models.
Chinese investment in projects such as roads, railways, ports, energy plants, and even airports across the continent directly addresses Africa’s most critical obstacle to industrialisation: its infrastructure deficit. The Chinese approach to development finance is viewed as respecting African sovereignty (though this is sometimes questionable), allowing national leaders to maintain their independent policy space and prioritise their own national development plans.
Moreover, African countries are strategically learning from Asia’s state-led development and export-oriented growth models, considering them to be a more relevant development blueprint than the slower, governance-conditional, market-first approach traditionally championed by the West.
Several African countries already have pragmatic ‘Look East’ policies or strategies. Zimbabwe has the most explicit policy, officially called the “Look East Policy” (LEP), introduced in the early 2000s under the Mugabe regime. The main aim of this policy was to counter Western sanctions and secure alternative sources of finance, trade, and diplomatic support. Although other countries do not have official LEPs, their actions and development agreements clearly indicate a shift towards Asian partners to meet development needs.
Sudan has adopted a Look East approach since the early 1990s. This was out of necessity under Omar al-Bashir’s rule, due to US sanctions and isolation caused by the Darfur conflict and allegations of state-sponsored terrorism. When major Western oil companies, such as Chevron, pulled out of Sudan due to instability and sanctions, state-owned Asian firms, China National Petroleum Corporation (China), Petronas (Malaysia), and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Videsh (India), stepped in and became the main investors in Sudan’s oil infrastructure, including pipelines and refineries.
Under President Mwai Kibaki (in the early 2000s) and continuing under his successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya shifted its investment strategy to prioritise attracting investments from the Sino-Indian-Persian triumvirate over traditional partners. This strategic shift was implemented to lessen reliance on the UK and Western donors, who were critical of the previous administration under President Daniel arap Moi and the corruption scandals during the Kibaki era. This change led to successfully securing significant Chinese financing for Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway and other infrastructure projects crucial to the country’s “Vision 2030” development plan.
Not necessarily driven by Western criticism and isolation, but mainly by the need to secure substantial finance and expertise for structural economic transformation, other African countries have looked (and continue to look) East, especially to China, to fund and build industrial and transport infrastructure to fundamentally transform their economies. For example, Nigeria, while maintaining strong Western links, adopted a distinct ‘Look East’ strategy, particularly during the administrations of Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, because Western aid and development finance were not adequate to close the country’s vast infrastructure gap. And Ethiopia’s developmental state model relies heavily on attracting foreign capital and expertise to industrialise, with the goal of shifting from an agrarian society to a manufacturing hub, similar to the development paths of several Asian countries. So far, Ethiopia has depended significantly on China to finance and build key industrial and transport infrastructure, making its economic strategy very China-centric in practice.
Collectively, these African pivots to the East over the past two and a half decades should serve as a reality check for the EU representatives and diplomats who gathered in Luanda. The adoption of ‘Look East’ policies is not merely a collection of isolated bilateral choices, but a fundamental critique of the Western development model and the terms on which the EU and other Western institutions engage with the continent. While the EU continues to frame its offerings around complex regulatory alignment and security conditionalities, African nations are increasingly leaning towards the tangible, steel-and-concrete outcomes provided by Asian partners. The Summit’s failure to acknowledge this suggests that Brussels is still attempting to answer questions that Africa stopped asking years ago.
The AU-EU Summit’s final declaration is a promise that, like many before it, will be judged not by its rhetoric but by its implementation between summits. Until the EU is ready to genuinely reconfigure its financial institutions, accept African-led priorities for structural economic transformation, and compete with other international partners based on the strengths of its commercial offerings rather than the moral superiority of its conditionalities, Africa will increasingly turn eastward. What the EU must understand is that Africa seeks partners in prosperity, and not just patrons of security.
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