The 2025 EU–AU Summit was extra important as it marked 25 years since the first Africa–Europe partnership meeting in Cairo. While the summit confirmed stronger cooperation in trade, peace and climate, it failed to manage several transformative issues that will influence Africa’s and Europe’s future. Such as regarding decentralized finance, migration, democratic renewal, green socio-economic transition, and artificial intelligence.
These topics matter much more today because global development is changing fast as regarding the EU conflict with Russia, the instability created by Trump’s USA, and the rise of authoritarian digital models. All of the relevant current development will require Africa and Europe to rethink their relationship.
A new partnership must focus more on individuals, markets, and innovators through decentralization, mobility, democratic institutions, ethical resource governance, and shared AI standards.
Africa and Europe before and after 25 Years. The case for freer and more decentralised partnership
The recent EU–AU Summit represented an extra important moment in the history of Africa–Europe relations. For 25 years, the partnership has evolved from a largely development-oriented relationship into a more equals and comprehensive political, economic, and institutional framework that influences the global agenda. This anniversary carries symbolic weight, but also practical, social and institutional importance. Since the recent event demonstrates that both continents and world regions increasingly are more important partners in a more uncertain global landscape.
The current geopolitical and global context reflects the summit’s importance. The Russian invasion and war in Ukraine have forced the EU to change much of its external policy and security development by reducing cooperation with Russia and creating new partnerships. Meanwhile, the USA under Trump has destabilized former transatlantic cooperation, undermined international institutions, and weakened international economic and security stability.
Therefore, Africa with all its economic potential and overall more positive development since the 2010s, has become more relevant regarding trade, green transformation, energy cooperation, and multilateral governance.
Yet despite the current development, as with the case of tariffs, wars and authoritarians, the summit did not fully use the moment in order to create more optimal cooperation, integration and development.
One reason is that the summit maintained much more focus on the typical and traditional frameworks of peace, trade, migration control, and infrastructure, but did not confront the new structural and technological changes shaping the next 25 years.
In order to build a partnership fit for the future, both the EU and the AU must expand their cooperation and integration into new areas such as decentralized economics, AI governance, democratic software, human mobility, and ethical green development. These developments are, in principle not optional since they cannot be ignored and are going to define the future of the world in general.
Decentralization and Crypto: The missing economic revolution
Cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) represent one of the most important economic revolutions of the 21st century, yet they were almost entirely absent from summit discussions. This absence is striking because Africa is already “a global leader” in practical crypto adoption.
Countries like Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana have some of the highest crypto usage rates in the world and not as financial speculation, but as a daily economic and personal tool.
A large number of young Africans use crypto to bypass unstable currencies, high remittance fees, and slow banking systems. Entrepreneurs trust crypto in order to engage in global commerce when traditional financial institutions are more inaccessible or unreliable.
Meanwhile, the EU is developing advanced crypto legislation (MiCA) and emerging as a major regulatory hub. European youth are increasingly skeptical of central banking monopolies, and startups are exploring decentralized applications for payments, identity, and governance. If Africa and Europe want to build a freer economic order, decentralization must become part of their shared agenda.
A new EU–AU partnership should embrace crypto as a foundation for personal and economic freedom. By legalizing usage, supporting education, and coordinating regulatory standards, Africa and Europe could create a shared crypto-economic zone that empowers individuals and communities rather than banks and bureaucracies.
Such a partnership would enable smoother remittances, easier cross-border entrepreneurship, and innovative community-led financial systems. It would also strengthen Africa’s digital sovereignty by preventing dependence on more centrally controlled financial infrastructure.
Human Mobility: freedom, opportunity, and connections
Migration remains one of the most polarised, sensitive but also misunderstood and misinterpreted issues in EU–AU relations. At the summit, migration was treated primarily as a security and border-control issue, reflecting both old and new biases within the EU. This framing is gaslighting the fundamental truth that migration is not a crisis, but a driver of progress, freedom, and innovation. Humans have more or less always moved to seek opportunity, safety, and better lives. Today, mobility is important not only for humanitarian reasons but for economic and demographic ones.
At the same time, even African economies, especially growing middle-income countries as Angola and Kenya, need global talent. Large African cities require engineers, educators, medical professionals, digital experts, researchers, and entrepreneurs. While the situation in Europe is, among other things, an aging population and labor shortages across sectors, from healthcare to technology. These realities make migration not only beneficial but mutually necessary.
Restrictive and repressive migration policies do not eliminate movement since they make it more dangerous, discriminatory and dehumanising. Human smuggling networks exist because legal pathways are lacking. When the EU and its member states arbitrarily limit visas or impose prohibitive conditions, people turn to irregular channels out of desperation. The solution is not more border enforcement and walls, but more freedom, safety, and legal migration.
Moreover, migration is not merely the movement of bodies across borders since it is the movement of ideas, relationships, innovation, and cooperation. When people are blocked from moving, they are blocked from forming friendships, partnerships, marriages, and businesses. This stifles cultural exchange and economic growth.
A truly modern EU–AU partnership could do things better and fairer by building a bilateral mobility system based on openness and dignity. It should allow Africans to enter Europe safely and legally, and Europeans to work and invest in Africa without excessive barriers. Such a system would strengthen economies, deepen social ties, and reinforce the democratic values of freedom and human security and dignity.
Green Transformation and “Green Colonialism”
Africa and Europe must cooperate more in order to manage environmental and climate-related problems. At the same time, the green transition carries also moral and political risks when not handled fairly. For example, several African nations hold vast reserves of critical raw minerals such as lithium and cobalt. They are important for renewable technologies. Europe and the world in general require these materials among other things, to meet climate goals, electrify transport, and build clean industries. This creates an economic opportunity, but also a danger without transparent governance and more of private, social and market-driven solutions.
One special political problem is known as “green colonialism” which occurs when wealthy nations, through their governments, pursue environmental goals at the expense of poorer nations, extracting resources without fair compensation, transparency, environmental protection, or local industrial development. If the EU demands a faster green transition but ignores the social and environmental consequences for African mining communities, trust between the continents will erode rapidly.
New solutions are needed so Europe and Africa can co-create an interregional legal framework governing raw materials extraction, trade, labor conditions, environmental standards, and revenue distribution. This framework would ensure that Africa benefits not only from mining but from processing, manufacturing, and technology transfer. It would also give Europe stable, ethical supply chains that reduce dependence on autocratic countries.
If successful, this EU–AU framework could inspire global legislation, positioning Africa and Europe as joint leaders in sustainable governance. Critical raw materials are not merely regional assets, they are the foundation of global technology. They should be governed in a way that respects people, the environment, and markets.
Democracy and Rule of Law: time for renewal and civic engagement
Democracy and the rule of law are important for market economics and personal freedoms as well as for everyday life, human interactions and cooperation. Yet both Africa and Europe face democratic backsliding. In Africa, recent coups and military takeovers have destabilized regions.
In Europe, mainly right-wing populist movements as in Hungary and Slovakia challenge judicial independence and undermine trust in institutions. These trends weaken the credibility of governments and damage their capacity to form long-term agreements.
When democracy declines, corruption rises, markets lose transparency, and citizens lose trust. Investors become cautious, civil society is weakened, and intercontinental cooperation becomes politically fragile. Authoritarian regimes cannot sustain long-term development partnerships because their commitments depend on the whims of a few individuals rather than the stability of institutions.
Strengthening democracy requires action on multiple levels. At the national level, African and European societies must reinforce judicial independence, media freedom, and civic participation as through civic assemblies and initiatives. At the regional level, both the AU and EU need stronger mechanisms to respond to democratic breakdowns. And at the intercontinental level, Africa and Europe should institutionalize democracy as a shared project.
One visionary proposal is the creation of a democratically elected EU–AU Intercontinental Parliamentary Assembly, where members of the European Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament deliberate together on migration, green policy, digital rights, AI, trade, and security. Such an institution would enhance transparency, build long-term trust, and ensure that cooperation is rooted not only in government agreements but in democratic legitimacy. It would symbolize a partnership between people and citizens, not just political elites.
Artificial Intelligence: the new gamechanger
Artificial intelligence is reshaping every aspect of society as regarding education, healthcare, agriculture, business, warfare, communication, and political systems. Yet despite AI’s enormous importance, the summit barely discussed it. This is alarming because Africa and Europe are both entering a technological era where AI will define prosperity, freedom, and general global development.
The EU has already created the world’s first human-centered AI legislation designed to protect citizens, prevent abuses, and maintain transparency in data and algorithmic processes. Africa, with its rapidly growing youth population and digital adoption rates, needs similar legislation in order to promote peaceful and civic-focused relations between humans and AI. This is important despite the current ambitions and strategy about AI taking place at the AU level since 2024.
After all, AI can be used for arbitrary surveillance, censorship, manipulation, and repression, but also it can be used to improve education, automate agriculture, strengthen healthcare systems, and expand markets.
If governed responsibly, AI can increase economic freedom and empower people around the world. For example, many people need AI today in order to keep their current jobs or to find new ones in the future. With AI, it is also possible to create more decentralised models for the economy, governance and education as well as everyday life innovation and solutions.
There is also a possibility that the EU-AU integration and cooperation could have a larger global impact and inspiration. A shared EU–AU framework for AI governance could ensure ethical standards, protect vulnerable groups, encourage innovation, and prevent dangerous uses of AI in warfare or propaganda. Such cooperation would also position Africa and Europe as a groundwork for creating global-level legislation in the future.
A More Decentralised and Open EU-AU Partnership
The recent EU–AU summit reaffirmed the political importance of the Africa–Europe partnership and demonstrated continuity in cooperation on peace, security, economic development, and multilateralism. Yet the long-term relevance of this partnership will depend less on the themes that dominated the agenda and more on those that remained underdeveloped or absent.
These omissions reveal the structural limits of a cooperation model still shaped by state-centric, security-driven, and institution-heavy thinking in a world that is rapidly becoming decentralized, digital, and networked.
The absence of decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies from the summit discussions highlights a broader reluctance to engage with citizen-driven economic innovation. In both Africa and Europe, individuals are increasingly using digital tools to bypass structural barriers, access global markets, and create value independently of traditional financial institutions. Ignoring this reality risks leaving economic transformation in the hands of unregulated actors or authoritarian models, rather than shaping it through cooperative, liberal frameworks that empower citizens directly.
Similarly, while the language of inclusion and growth is present, the summit stopped short of articulating a vision for genuine economic autonomy at the individual level. Without addressing how people themselves can gain greater control over economic participation through mobility, digital platforms, or decentralized systems, it means that the partnership risks remaining elite-driven and disconnected from everyday economic realities.
Migration illustrates another key limitation. Although mobility was discussed, it was largely framed through security and control rather than freedom and opportunity.
Treating human movement primarily as a risk undermines trust and ignores its role in innovation, demographic sustainability, and human connection. A future-oriented partnership must recognize mobility as a reciprocal and legitimate feature of intercontinental relations, not merely a problem to be managed.
Equally telling is the lack of institutional imagination when it comes to democratic innovation. Cooperation between Africa and Europe increasingly affects citizens across borders, yet democratic accountability remains confined to national and continental silos. Without exploring supranational or intercontinental democratic mechanisms, the partnership risks becoming technocratic and politically fragile in the face of growing distrust toward institutions.
Finally, artificial intelligence was acknowledged but not treated as the profound geopolitical challenge it represents. AI has the potential to either strengthen democracy and economic freedom or to entrench authoritarianism and surveillance. Without coordinated governance, Africa and Europe risk becoming passive recipients of external technological power rather than active norm-setters.
Taken together, these gaps point to a central conclusion: the EU–AU partnership must evolve from managing problems to enabling freedoms. The next phase of cooperation should focus not only on stability and growth, but on empowering individuals, deepening democratic legitimacy, and jointly shaping the rules of emerging and disruptive technologies. The summit in Luanda celebrated 25 years of partnership, but the next 25 years will require deeper ambitions, visions and developments.
Therefore, in order to remain relevant and transformative, the EU–AU relationship must embrace the more decentralised processes reshaping our world. A partnership that empowers individuals as students, workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators is far stronger than one limited to bureaucratic negotiations. Africa and Europe have the opportunity to create an intercontinental model of cooperation based on freedom, responsibility, transparency, and innovation. in order to contribute to a future where freedom, welfare and prosperity are more shared equally across our regions.
Vladan Lausevic
He is from Sweden and a Senior Policy Fellow at ILAPI. He writes extensively on trade and international relations.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), its Board, or affiliates. Content is provided for informational purposes only. Authors are responsible for the integrity, originality, and sourcing of their work. Any references to individuals, institutions, or policies are made in good faith and for the purpose of public policy discussion.
Image Source:
William Samoei Ruto’ X page https://x.com/WilliamsRuto/status/1993026863879340106/photo/2
