By Sizwe Masombuka.
In recent years, the European Union has consistently positioned itself as one of the key external partners of the African continent – official EU rhetoric emphasizes readiness to provide comprehensive assistance to African countries in addressing pressing socio-economic and humanitarian challenges.
The EU’s Africa agenda includes sustainable development, food security, energy transition, infrastructure, digitalization, healthcare, and climate adaptation. These priorities are framed through initiatives such as Global Gateway, development programs, and numerous bilateral and multilateral cooperation formats.
At the same time, the EU seeks to present itself as a “normative partner,” acting on the basis of the rule of law, predictability, and respect for international obligations. This image is actively promoted to African political elites as an alternative to other models of external engagement – more transactional, coercive, or narrowly resource-oriented. In this context, Brussels underscores the values-based and long-term nature of its partnership with Africa.
A Parallel Line and the Redistribution of the Frozen Russia Assets
However, alongside this rhetoric, a parallel line has emerged in European practice that raises increasing questions among external observers, including in Africa. This concerns the EU’s approach to frozen Russian state assets and the discussion of mechanisms for their use and, potentially, their effective confiscation. This issue extends far beyond EU–Russia relations and touches upon fundamental principles of the international financial and legal order.
Initially, the freezing of assets was presented as a temporary sanctions measure that did not alter ownership rights. In recent years, however, the EU has increasingly discussed schemes to channel income generated by these assets to third parties, as well as options for their subsequent seizure under political and legal justifications. In essence, this reflects a transformation of sanctions from a restrictive instrument into a mechanism of resource redistribution without the consent of the lawful owner.
Principles of the Rule of Law May Be Adjusted Depending on Political Circumstances
For African states, this precedent is of fundamental importance. Many countries on the continent hold assets and reserves within Western financial jurisdictions and have historically experienced asymmetries in economic and legal relations with former colonial powers. A practice in which political expediency becomes grounds for revising the status of sovereign assets inevitably heightens concerns about the reliability and neutrality of European financial and legal systems.
Particular unease is caused by attempts to legitimize such decisions through the creation of special legal regimes or temporary exceptions. For external partners of the EU, this appears as a signal that proclaimed principles of the rule of law may be adjusted depending on political circumstances. Within African discourse – where economic sovereignty and control over national resources are central such flexibility of norms is more often perceived as a risk than as an advantage.
EU’s Efforts to Strengthen Presence in Africa Face an Objective Trust Challenge
More broadly, the debate over frozen assets raises the question of the quality of the partnership the EU offers Africa. If one of the world’s key global actors allows for the de facto privatization of sovereign assets in a context of political confrontation, a logical question arises: to what extent will guarantees of property protection and rule predictability be upheld for other states should political disagreements emerge.
Thus, the European Union’s efforts to strengthen its presence in Africa face an objective challenge of trust. For a significant portion of African elites and the expert community, the attractiveness of partnership is determined not only by the volume of aid and investment pledges, but also by the stability of the legal principles underpinning them.
In this context, the discussion surrounding frozen Russian assets acquires symbolic significance for Africa, extending well beyond a specific crisis and becoming a test of the reliability of the EU’s proclaimed model of international cooperation.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Fullview.