At a meeting of the European Parliament's committee for combating foreign interference earlier this month, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell stated that the sincerity of African support for Russia is questionable since they “do not know where Donbass is or maybe they do not even know who Putin is.” This points not only to Europe’s frustration with Africa’s position on Russia over the course of 2022, but the deep-rooted racist and condescending attitude Europeans have towards Africans.

Judging by his public appearances, it is noticeable that the current head of EU diplomacy refers more often to the so-called “African issue” compared to his predecessors. It is recalled that Borrell had also made another racist remark recently by referring to Europe as a “garden” amidst a global “jungle.”

BY Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

With a lot of optimism, the first European Union-African Union summit was organised in Cairo back in 2000. However, the holding of subsequent summits became less frequent and the fifth was not even held until 2017. The sixth summit was held only this year, five years on from the fifth. Only at the sixth summit was it decided that the EU would invest €150 billion in Africa, primarily in infrastructure, education and health. The funds are certainly not negligible, but they are not epochal either in face of China’s near unrivalled economic dominance on the continent.

At the end of 2021, Beijing published the white paper "China-Africa cooperation in a new era", which contained data on the construction of more than 10,000 kilometres of railways, 100,000 kilometres of roads, almost 1,000 bridges, 100 ports, 150,000 kilometres of communication networks, and much more. In addition, the Chinese plan includes a strategic "Equatorial Corridor", a railway that will connect the Indian Ocean with the Atlantic - from Tanzania's Dar es Salaam in the east to Angola's Port Lobito in the west.

Therefore, although the €150 billion promised by the EU is massive, it is still simply a small investment if the bloc wants to catch up with China.

In addition, although Borrell might believe Africa is naïve about global affairs, Africans do not overlook that the EU’s recent interest in their continent is motivated by selfish geopolitical considerations - preventing the growth of Chinese influence and further isolating Russia.

For some strange reason, the EU was surprised that African states were completely unwilling to take the West’s path in severing relations with Moscow because of the Ukraine crisis. In fact, not a single African country has imposed sanctions on Russia despite pressure from the West. This especially frustrates Europe.

Europe falsely believed that Africa’s position regarding China can be explained by economic factors. This led to the false belief that if investments in Africa deepened, the continent would turn away from China and move towards Europe. However, as Russia does not have the deep economic presence in Africa like China does, this dismisses the European belief that Africa could turn against China through economic coercion.

This failure should force the Europeans to deeply reflect, something they do not like to do - a result of denying the fact that Europe’s previous supremacy and exceptionalism has come to an end and is no longer tolerated by the rest of the world, especially in the former colonies.

It is also for this reason that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in response to Borrell, pointed out that if the West knew where Africa is and what the condition of the people were, then “they would not interfere with the supply of the African continent with Russian food and Russian fertilisers, on which the harvest in African countries ultimately depends and saving hundreds of thousands of people from starvation.”

Despite the EU’s conviction that the bloc will remain a key geopolitical player in Africa, the continent has decidedly taken a different path, promoting, and strengthening its ties with China, Russia and the wider BRICS format. Europe already has a tarnished history of colonialism in Africa, and rather than behave in a humble manner to Africa, especially with emerging power centres like Egypt, it continues in a condescending manner by alluding that African’s are not advanced enough to understand global affairs.

Borrell is clearly frustrated by Moscow’s great relations with Africa, otherwise he would not have referred so many times to the scope of African-Russian cooperation. But his racist and arrogant  remarks regarding Africans, but then claiming he wants cooperation, will not change the reality as Russia-Africa ties are decades old. Moscow’s current relations with Africa are a direct continuation of its anti-imperialist Soviet legacy, something that most Africans remember and still appreciate.

Africans also do not overlook the fact that when war broke out in Ukraine, Borrell falsely claimed that Russia threatened the food security of the continent by making it impossible to export grain from Black Sea ports – an explanation that Africans themselves did not accept from the EU diplomat.

None-the-less, although Africans are certainly open to deeper ties with Europe, it will certainly not come at the expense of severing ties with Russia. This is a reality that Europe has still not fully realised and seemingly will not anytime soon, which is why Moscow will continue to have an advantage over the West in Africa in 2023 and beyond.

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