EU-Africa Partnership in Shifting Global Order
Regional Security, Green Transition and Global Power Competition
The conference examines the evolving contours of the EU–Africa partnership in an increasingly fragmented and competitive global order. Against the backdrop of the last EU–AU Summit held in Luanda in November 2025, the conference explores how both regions are redefining cooperation amid intensifying geopolitical rivalry, economic insecurity, and climate pressures. Particular attention will be paid to security and conflict dynamics across the African continent, including the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea corridor, where governance crises, violent extremism, and fragile state institutions intersect with growing external intervention. The conference will assess the extent to which the EU’s renewed engagement strategy, through initiatives such as Global Gateway, can strengthen African resilience, support conflict prevention, and foster more balanced and sustainable partnerships in a changing international system.
A second focus of the conference concerns the strategic competition surrounding critical minerals, the energy transition, and the circular economy. As African countries become increasingly central to global supply chains for cobalt, lithium, rare earths, and other strategic resources essential to green technologies, the conference examines how EU–Africa relations are being shaped by the growing involvement of external actors, particularly Turkey, Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates.
Discussions will address how these actors influence infrastructure development, security cooperation, trade, and energy investments across the continent, often challenging Europe’s traditional role. At the same time, the conference will examine opportunities for building resilient and equitable value chains through local industrialization, sustainable extraction practices, and circular economy approaches that move beyond extractive dependency. By bringing together scholars and practitioners from Europe and Africa, the conference aims to contribute to current debates on multilateralism, strategic autonomy, and the future of interregional cooperation in an era of profound geopolitical transformation.
