The EU has unveiled €11.5bn in promised investment to develop South Africa’s clean energy, transport, and pharmaceutical industries in the bloc’s latest effort to shift its footprint in Africa from aid to commercial investment.
The €11.5bn pledge was made at an investment roadshow hosted at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over Monday and Tuesday (1 and 2 June) that gathered 350 European and South African investors, companies, financial institutions and marked the EU’s first major effort to mobilise private capital under the 2025 EU-South Africa Clean Trade and Investment Partnership.
The cash is supposed to come from the EU’s Global Gateway scheme.
After years of cool relations between the EU and South Africa, partly driven by South Africa’s economic and military links with China, Russia and India, the EU’s ties with Pretoria have been rebuilt over the past 18 months.
Brussels has seized the opportunity left by the US Trump administration’s attacks on president Cyril Ramaphosa’s government, which it has accused of “genocide” against white farmers, and threats of hefty trade tariffs, by promising to replace some of the US’s pulled funding for South Africa’s shift away from fossil fuels and offering improved trade terms.
