European development aid has entered a new phase of the European Union’s neocolonialist agenda. Its “Global Gateway” plan is a wishlist for infrastructure projects to be launched across the world by European companies, backed by liberal reforms to pave the way. At its heart: Africa, where at least half of all investments are set to land.

The Global Gateway was introduced by the EU’s technocratic institutions in Brussels as a branding exercise for a new direction for European aid in the world, following the cracks the COVID-19 pandemic revealed in Europe’s supply chains. In effect, this plan has sought to secure access to raw materials as well as energy with a view to reducing reliance on China’s minerals and Russia’s gas. This has entailed challenging China’s global infrastructure investments known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the growing geopolitical influence of Russia.

The headline goal is apparently to mobilize €300 billion in global investments between 2021 and 2027, with €150 billion in the pipeline for Africa. But it did not take long for details to emerge showing that not only were there no new funds put forward by the EU, but the so-called billions are to be conjured up through the old toolbox of loans from multilateral development banks and EU member states. Projects from these loans are now rebranded as the Global Gateway. To encourage these investments, the European Union offers a €53 billion budget of guarantees, a kind of insurance to be paid out to those banks if projects fail, which is a rather rare case. It budgets just €18 billion in grants to support the roll-out of this initiative. But even this money will support European corporations.

This sum pales in comparison to the $1.17 trillion China has already invested in the BRI, almost four times the EU’s projected investments under the Global Gateway. On top of that, the European Court of Auditors has already questioned whether the EU can mobilize the claimed sums.

In other words, Europe claims to support global development without actually committing any new or meaningful financial resources for much-needed infrastructure investments in low-income countries. This reflects the “billions to trillions” charade of the World Bank and the G7, which seeks to draw in private investments into so-called development projects—often structured to create opportunities for corporate profits. To sell this offer to the rest of the world, the Global Gateway is promoted as a package of high-quality initiatives rooted in European “values and principles.” Moreover, as European nations slash already underfunded development budgets and instead prioritize military spending, migration management, and the “competitiveness” of their clean technologies, the Global Gateway is gaining increasing traction as a new tool for pursuing European geopolitical interests, disguised as development finance.

Much like European neoliberal trade agreements, which have had a dramatic impact on local jobs and industries, the Global Gateway promotes privatization and liberalization. In the energy sector, this means more opportunities for European enterprises to construct renewable energy projects, such as solar power plants, backed by European development funds to compete with much cheaper Chinese alternatives.

In reality, these funds intend to help siphon off resources to Europe. Many renewable energy and hydrogen projects are designed to serve as energy imports for Europe, more than delivering affordable renewable energy for local communities. All the while, the African continent is facing an energy shortage, with 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone having no access to electricity. This includes the construction of SouthH2 Corridor, a 3,300km hydrogen pipeline from North Africa to Germany and Italy. Promoted during Europe’s energy crisis in 2022 under the guise of “energy security” and backed by its fossil fuel companies, the Global Gateway’s flagship project will exploit African land, water, and labor to feed Europe’s energy greed.

The extractive pathways are also to be facilitated by 11 logistical corridors of little value to African regional trade routes, which will form the backbone of European extraction of raw minerals. A prominent example is the Lobito Corridor in the DRC, Zambia, and Angola. This project, supported by the G7—including, so far, the Trump administration—aims at facilitating the fast transport of underpriced raw minerals extracted by multinational companies from the regional mines, sites marked by exploitative labor conditions, displacement, rights violations, and environmental destruction. The joint venture granted a 30-year concession to modernize and operate the old colonial railway, making up the Lobito Corridor, which includes companies already implicated in multiple scandals, such as the multinational commodity trader, Trafigura, involved in large bribery schemes in Angola and Brazil, and a billion-dollar fraud in Mongolia.

Despite paying lip service to local added value, these new European investment projects are not designed to support local productive capacity, include African companies, transfer technology and know-how, or create quality jobs. For instance, international and Kenyan trade unions estimated that a Global Gateway-branded project planning a roll-out of the electrified bus rapid transport system in Nairobi risks affecting half of the around 70,000 people working in the current local transport system. At the same time, the project will likely ensure buyers for European-made electric buses financed by European “development” loans.

The Global Gateway does not spare the recipient countries from the debt amassed through these projects. By design, it often falls on official promoters—often African politicians and companies, who then subcontract European companies and their subsidiaries to build the project. At the same time, it can allow national payment obligations that arise in the form of public-private partnerships (PPPs)—a key tool of the Global Gateway—to be kept off the books, encouraging a project model that inflates costs for governments who face limited access to loans.

To put it bluntly, Global Gateway is about persuading countries in the Global South to take up loans for projects that they do not need, for supposed benefits that they will not have. All of this conveniently allows the European countries to perpetuate centuries-old strategies rooted in exploitation, as well as to avoid reforms around debt to trade justice that would genuinely free up resources for the Global South countries.

Clearly, Europe can’t compete with Chinese investments. Chinese discourse promotes a much more ambitious local added value component. For instance, in its China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035, released in 2021, China committed to helping develop “Made in Africa” brands and supporting the local manufacturing sector. In 2023, the Chinese government reported 25 Chinese-funded industrial parks in Africa. The EU’s Global Gateway communication, on the contrary, is all about supporting European companies. And while there are undoubtedly problems of due diligence standards, geopolitical influence, and debt in Chinese infrastructure investments—which could make European finance more attractive—risks begin to emerge in these EU projects, too. A Global Gateway raw materials partnership with Europe, concluded with Rwanda to source raw materials, is still in place, despite the UN accusations that Rwanda has been smuggling the minerals from the DRC, where it is also involved in an armed conflict. This puts in question Europe’s carefully constructed narrative of Global Gateway’s high standards, which it claims should distinguish it from the Chinese BRI.

Europe is facing the limits of its neoliberal economic model, manifesting itself as a crisis of energy or a greed for raw minerals to boost industrial production and competitiveness. But making Africa pay the price for European prosperity is akin to the old colonial model, including dragging the continent into its conflicts.

The simple truth is that global justice can’t be replaced by yet another blueprint for exploitation, disguised as development, and sold as debt. Instead of going to its own companies, European development finance should underwrite real risks, like crop failures from climate impacts, unavailability of affordable sustainable energy, or a lack of local productive capacity and new technologies, and not the fears of rich European shareholders chasing satisfactory returns.

Instead of deals made by handshakes with presidents, it’s time for a radical power shift away from European capitals towards the Global South, and centered on the demands of local actors like unions and civil society.