The European Union on Thursday announced a 4.7 billion euro investment pact with South Africa aimed in part at supporting the country’s just energy transition.
The EU funding was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Cape Town two days after the United States pulled out of an energy transition partnership with South Africa to which it had committed US$1 billion.
Washington’s withdrawal reduced the total international JET pledges to the country to US$12.8 billion.
The European agreement, called the EU-South Africa Global Gateway Investment package, has three focus areas — supporting projects complementary to South Africa’s transition to a low-carbon economy, developing connectivity infrastructure and strengthening the country’s domestic pharmaceutical industry, specifically the development of vaccines.
Von der Leyen did not say what percentage of the funding would flow towards the first, only that it would be used for the development of critical minerals and green hydrogen value chains.
She said the year would see more pledges of financial support to help Africa shift towards clean energy sources.
“We call it scaling up renewables in Africa. And together, we want to deliver cleaner, more sustainable power to millions of people,” she said at a joint media briefing with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the eighth EU-SA summit.
“And together, we want to deliver cleaner, more sustainable power to millions of people. This autumn, again, in the margins of the G20, we will hold a major pledging event to rally the world around this cause. It will take place in Johannesburg.
“Today’s Global Gateway package and its focus on clean energy is already a significant pledge. And we hope this is a strong signal to others to join this pledge and to contribute.”
After coming under diplomatic attack from the Trump administration, South Africa has in recent weeks used its presidency of the G20 to reinforce its ties with Europe, whose historic alliance with the US has been thrown into crisis by Washington rapprochement with Moscow.
“It is very important to me to strengthen the ties of friendship with like-minded countries and partners like South Africa,” Von der Leyen said in response to a question in this regard.
“On both sides there is high respect for stability, predictability and reliability, and in these difficult times with a multitude of crises that we are facing, it is important also for the people to know we stay the course together, that we have a set of shared values that we are bound to and this is for us therefore a very important summit that we are having.”
The EU has been vocal in its support for South Africa’s leadership of the G20 since the US shunned key meetings of the forum on the pretext that the host nation was promoting “anti-Americanism”.
European Council President Antonio Costa reiterated the bloc’s support and said it saw South Africa as a partner in creating a fairer, more equal and stable world.
“In this world of instability, our partnership matters more than ever,” he said. “The European Union does not see the future through the lens of division between blocs, between North and South.”
Von der Leyen confirmed that she exchanged views with Ramaphosa on efforts to end the war in Ukraine and said she was pleased that he would host President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a state visit in early April.
“Nobody deserves peace more than the people of Ukraine and therefore it was also a topic among us here at the summit,” she said.
“It is important that we work for just and lasting peace in Ukraine …that we have a true peace agreement not only a ceasefire, and therefore it was, for us, very important to exchange views on how to get there.”
Ramaphosa will meet with Zelenskyy in Pretoria on April 10.
“We have also said that we want to hasten a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and we have been saying exactly that to both parties,” he said.
Ramaphosa added that he believed South Africa had shaken off perceptions that it was too close to Moscow to mediate an end to the three-year conflict.
“Whereas in the past we have been branded as being one-sided, our involvement in this has proven and demonstrated that we are neutral.”
