BRUSSELS — When the colonial governments of Belgium and Portugal ordered the construction of a railway connecting oil- and mineral-rich regions in the African interior to the Atlantic, their primary objective was to plunder resources such as rubber, ivory and minerals for export to Western countries. 

Today, that same stretch of railway infrastructure, snaking through Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola to the port of Lobito, is being modernized and extended with U.S. and EU money to facilitate the transport of sought-after minerals like cobalt and copper. Just this month, Jozef Síkela, the EU commissioner for international partnerships, signed a €116 million investment package for the corridor, often hailed as a model initiative under Global Gateway, the bloc’s infrastructure development program.

This time around, however, Brussels says it’s committed to resetting its historically tainted relationship with the region — a message European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will stress when they address African and EU leaders at a Nov. 24-25 summit in Luanda, Angola, which is this year celebrating 50 years of independence from Portuguese rule. 

“Global Gateway is about mutual benefits,” von der Leyen said in a keynote speech in October. The program should “focus even more on key value chains,” including the metals and minerals needed in everything from smartphones to wind turbines and defense applications. 

The aim, she said, is to “build up resilient value chains together. With local infrastructure, but also local jobs, local skills and local industries.” 

Yet Brussels is scrambling to enter a region only to find that China got there first.

African countries are already the primary suppliers of minerals to Beijing, which has secured access to their resource wealth — unhindered by any historical baggage of colonial exploitation — and is now the world’s dominant processor.

Europe’s emphasis on retaining economic value in host countries — rather than merely extracting resources for export — answers calls by African leaders for a more equitable and sustainable approach to developing their countries’ natural resources. 

“The EU has been quite vocal, since the beginning of the raw minerals diplomacy two years ago, saying: We want to be the ethical partner,” said Martina Matarazzo, international and EU advocacy coordinator at Resource Matters, a Belgian NGO focusing on resource extraction, which also has an office in Kinshasa, DRC. 

But “there is a big gap” between what’s being said and what’s being done, she added, pointing out that it is still unclear how the Lobito Corridor can be a “win-win” project, rather than just facilitating the shipping of minerals abroad. 

Brussels finds itself under growing pressure to diversify its supply chains of lithium, rare earths and other raw materials away from China — which has demonstrated time and again it is ready to weaponize its market dominance. To that end, it is drafting a new plan, due on Dec. 3, to accelerate the bloc’s diversification efforts.  

In African countries, however, Brussels is still struggling to establish itself as an attractive, ethical alternative to Beijing, which has long secured vast access to the continent’s resources through large-scale investments in mining, processing and infrastructure. 

To enter the minerals space, the EU needs to walk the talk in close cooperation with African leaders — doing so may be its only chance to secure resources while moving away from its extractivist past, POLITICO has found in conversations with researchers, policymakers and civil society. 

Resource rush

Appetite for Africa’s vast natural riches first drew colonizers to the continent — and laid “the foundation for post-independence resource dependency and external interference,” according to the Africa Policy Research Institute. Now, the continent’s deposits of vital minerals have turned it into a strategic player, with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema last year setting a goal of tripling copper output by the end of the decade, for instance.

Beijing has often used Belt and Road, its international development initiative, to secure mining rights in exchange for infrastructure projects.

Washington, which lags far behind Beijing, is also stepping up its game, with investments into Africa quietly overtaking China’s. President Donald Trump has extended the U.S. security umbrella to war-torn areas in exchange for access to resources, for example brokering a — shaky — peace deal between Rwanda and the DRC.

EU companies are “really trying to catch up,” said Christian Géraud Neema Byamungu, an expert on China-Africa relations and the Francophone Africa editor of the China Global South Project. “They left Africa when there was a sense that Africa is not really a place to do business.”

Doing things differently

Against this backdrop, the key question for the EU is: What can it offer to set itself apart from other partners?

On paper, the answer is clear: a responsible approach to resource extraction that prioritizes creating local economic value, along with high environmental and social standards. 

“We want to focus on the sustainable development of value chains and how to work with our African partners to support their rise of the value chains,” said an EU official ahead of the Luanda summit, where minerals will be a key topic. “This is not about extraction only,” they added.

But so far, that still has to translate into a concrete impact on the ground.

“We are not at the point where we can see how really the EU is trying to change things on the ground in terms of value addition in DRC,” said Emmanuel Umpula Nkumba, executive director of NGO Afrewatch.

“I am not naïve, they are coming to make money, not to help us,” he added. 

Not only has offtake from the Lobito Corridor been slow, but the project has also come under fire for prioritizing Western interests over African development and agency, and for potentially leading to the destruction of local forests, community displacement and an overall lack of benefits for local populations. 

The EU, however, views the corridor as “a symbol of the partnership between the African and European continent and an example of our shared investment agenda,” according to a Commission spokesperson, who called it “a lifeline towards sustainable development and shared prosperity.”

Finally, while “value addition” has become a catchphrase, it’s unclear whether EU and African leaders see eye to eye on what the term means. 

African industry representatives and officials often point to building a domestic supply chain up to the final product. EU officials, by contrast, tend to envision refining minerals in the country of origin and then exporting them, according to a report published by the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A sustainable business case?

The second component of the EU’s approach — strong sustainability and human rights safeguards — faces major trouble, not least in the name of making the EU more competitive. 

In Brussels, proposed rules that would require companies to police their supply chains for environmental harm and human rights violations are dying a slow death, as conservative politicians channel complaints from businesses that they can’t bear the cost of complying.

An investigation by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre of the 13 mining, refining and recycling projects outside the bloc labeled “strategic” by the EU executive — including four in Africa — identified “an inconsistent approach to key human rights policies.” 

However, under pressure from African leaders, stricter safeguards are slowly becoming more important in the sector: “high [environmental, social and governance] standards” are a core component of the African Union’s mining strategy published in 2024. 

The Chinese, too, are adapting quickly. 

“China’s also getting good with standards,” said Sarah Logan, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who co-authored the assessment of African and European interpretations of value addition. “If they are made to, Chinese mining companies are very capable of adhering to ESG standards.” 

Therefore, besides massively scaling up investment, the EU and European companies will need to turn their promise of being a reliable and ethical partner into reality — sooner rather than later.

“The only way to distinguish ourselves from the Chinese is to guarantee these benefits for communities,” Spanish Green European lawmaker Ana Miranda Paz told a panel discussion on the Lobito Corridor in Brussels.

This story has been updated with comment from the European Commission.