On renewing the EU-Africa partnership: building common priorities ahead of the Angola Summit

B100474/2025

European Parliament resolution on renewing the EU-Africa partnership: building common priorities ahead of the Angola Summit

(2025/2933(RSP))

– having regard to the UN’s 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects,

– having regard to preliminary data from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) for the first nine months of 2025, published on 10 October 2025,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report N° 17/2024, entitled ‘The EU trust fund for Africa – Despite new approaches, support remained unfocused’,

– having regard to the Executive Order of US President Donald Trump of 7 February 2025 entitled ‘Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa’,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas Frontex recorded 133 400 illegal entries into the EU between January and September 2025;

B. whereas in December 2024, there were over 1.2 million asylum applications pending in the EU, and the number of pending cases for applicants from some African countries, such as Guinea and Mali, saw significant increases, while applicants from Mali and Eritrea are among the highest numbers of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the EU in 2025;

C. whereas only around 20 % of asylum seekers whose applications are rejected leave the EU, deportations and voluntary returns combined;

D. whereas Africa’s population is expected to grow to almost 4 billion by 2100, with Nigeria alone reaching 477 million by the end of this century, which is more than the EU population in 2024; whereas migration pressure on Europe from Africa is therefore expected to constantly increase during the coming decades;

E. whereas foreign direct investment and official development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa reached nearly USD 2 trillion between 1980 and 2018, while illicit financial flows from that region reached USD 1 trillion;

F. whereas financial fraud and corruption cost Africa more than USD 90 billion per year; whereas this enormous loss of resources could otherwise be invested in critical development needs including water, sanitation, healthcare, food and energy infrastructure;

G. whereas the Republic of South Africa is the EU’s only strategic partner country on the African continent and has been promised a Global Gateway investment package worth EUR 4.7 billion this year, even though the country’s indigenous Boer minority is subjected to systematic violence and harassment by the state, including 142 racially discriminatory laws and several hundred murders of Boer farmers per year, which is why the US Government now speaks of genocide and is granting the Boers refuge in the United States;

1. Is committed to an EU-Africa partnership based on mutual benefit; notes that this has not been sufficiently achieved to date, and specifically, that there is insufficient return on investment from the EU funds deployed, and that these funds are not sufficiently linked to the successful prevention of illegal migration to the EU from Africa;

2. Is concerned about rampant corruption, political mismanagement, and the presence and spread of religious and political extremism on the African continent, which call into question the effectiveness and relevance of EU development policy towards Africa;

3. Expresses deep concern about the severe persecution, including violence, displacement and discrimination, of Christians in Africa; notes that eight of the top 10 deadliest places in the world for Christians are in sub-Saharan Africa; notes that a great deal of this violence is perpetrated by jihadists and Islamic extremists; notes that Nigeria is the country most affected in the world by violence against Christians; calls on the EU to make development aid to African countries, and cooperation with African countries in other areas, dependent on the serious improvement of the situation of Christians in Africa;

4. Notes with great concern the continuing high influx of illegal migrants from Africa to Europe, as well as the far too low repatriation rates, which prove that the EU asylum system is not meeting the requirements of the 21st century;

5. Criticises the Commission and the Council for failing to make significant progress on combating illegal migration, even ten years since the start of a historically unprecedented wave of immigration;

6. Calls, therefore, on the Commission and the Council to make the fight against illegal migration a priority at the EU-African Union summit, to be held in Luanda, Angola on 24 and 25 November 2025;

7. Advocates, in this context, for an agreement on the consistent combating of people-smuggling and human trafficking;

8. Calls on the Commission and the Council to use the summit to negotiate readmission agreements with the member states of the African Union (AU);

9. Calls for the suspension of EU development funds for those AU member states that do not cooperate sufficiently in the repatriation of their citizens;

10. Calls on the Commission to review the EUR 545 million support package to African countries promised on 29 September 2025, to ensure that partner countries cooperate sufficiently in the repatriation of their citizens and, if they do not, to put the promised investments on hold;

11. Demands that future Global Gateway projects be granted preferentially to those AU member states that make significant progress on combating illegal migration and human trafficking;

12. Calls for EU development aid to be prioritised in the long term for those countries that demonstrate best practice in combating terrorism and corruption, as well as religious and political extremism;

13. Calls, furthermore, for particular attention to be paid when allocating future EU development aid, to ensure that investments are used to curb the current unsustainable population growth in partner countries;

14. Calls for development aid to be withheld from those countries that actively contribute to the destabilisation of neighbouring countries through overt or covert military intervention;

15. Demands that the continuation of the EU’s Strategic Partnership with the Republic of South Africa be made conditional upon the Republic of South Africa ending legal discrimination against the Boers, compensating expropriated farmers and the relatives of murdered Boers for the injustices done to them, and establishing effective measures to protect this minority;

16. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the EU Member States, the United Nations and the African Union.