It is well known that the relationship between Europe and Africa has been shaped by decades of exploitation, reproduced at every stage through different tools. Authoritarian regimes and coup enthusiasts have long found in European support a lifeline for survival and a means to entrench repression under the slogans of stability, development, or migration control.From this perspective, Europe’s current shift toward investing in African infrastructure cannot be read as a moral break with the past as much as it is an attempt to make up for a clear strategic delay in the face of a smart and well-organized Chinese expansion.
Africa’s growing importance does not stem solely from the scale of its resources, but from its position within the global scarcity equation. As reserves shrink and demand rises, the continent has come to represent the last strategic reservoir capable of supplying the global economy with raw materials. This reality has driven major powers — China, the United States, Russia, and Europe — into an intense race to secure a foothold that guarantees the flow of resources and redraws the maps of future trade. Europe, however, unlike its competitors, seeks to market this race under an institutional investment framework that softens the weight of the colonial memory without altering the essence of the equation.
Today, with Europe launching the Global Gateway project with investments exceeding €150 billion, partly directed toward Africa, it is not so much attempting to redefine the relationship on genuine developmental foundations as it is searching for a position within the global struggle for influence. China, which has injected nearly $160 billion into the continent, has succeeded in turning ports, railways, and trade corridors into instruments of geopolitical leverage and in linking African resources directly to Asian industrial value chains. This breakthrough has not only challenged Europe’s traditional influence but has also placed European industrial security itself under mounting pressure.
The Lobito Corridor emerges as the spearhead of the new European strategy. The corridor, which connects the mineral-rich regions of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the port of Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coast, is not merely a transport project but a strategic artery for critical minerals such as cobalt and copper — the backbone of the transition to clean energy, electric vehicles, and battery industries. Global demand for these minerals is accelerating rapidly, with estimates suggesting it could quadruple by 2040.Although this competition opens a window of opportunity for some African countries to improve infrastructure and increase investment flows, the risk of reproducing the dark colonial past in a more friendly form remains. The question is: will Africa become a genuine partner in global value chains, or will it remain an arena for managing competition, regardless of changing titles and tools?