Luanda in the spotlight: a city of contrasts as Europe courts Africa
Luanda feels like two cities layered atop each other: gleaming new terminals and glossy hotels that whisper of petrodollars, and narrow streets where small businesses hawk phone credit and roasted corn beneath a relentless equatorial sun.
This week the capital of Angola — a country marking roughly half a century since breaking free of Portuguese colonial rule — became a stage for a new kind of diplomacy. European delegations arrived in suits and suits of intentions: trade, security, and access to the minerals that will fuel the next industrial age.
You could feel the stakes in the humidity. Flags fluttered along the avenue leading to the summit center. Delegates moved between meetings with aides in tow. Local vendors cleared space to sell coffee to staffers and translation headsets were tuned. The celebration of independence — a milestone many Angolans greeted with pride and barely concealed irony — provided the backdrop.
History’s shadow and everyday realities
Angola’s past is braided into the present. Centuries of extraction under colonial rule, followed by a long and ruinous struggle after independence, left scars invisible on maps and visible on the ground. Ruins of war linger in the form of unexploded ordnance; entire districts bear the legacy of conflict in the bodies and livelihoods of their people.
“We get by. We don’t really live,” said João, a tour operator who’s worked the hills near Luanda for a decade. “I take tourists to see the coastline, but most Angolans are still waiting for the oil and diamonds to make a difference in our daily lives.” He told me wages in his neighborhood are often below $100 a month.
That gap between national wealth and household survival is a common refrain in resource-rich countries. Angola sits on vast reserves of oil and diamonds. Yet the benefit rarely trickles down evenly; roads, schools, and hospitals still strain under decades of deferred investment.
What the world wants — and why Africa matters
It’s not just oil and diamonds drawing external attention anymore. The scramble for critical minerals — cobalt, copper, manganese, lithium and others essential to electric vehicle batteries, renewable energy infrastructure and sophisticated electronics — has shifted the economic maps. Much of this bounty lies in African soil.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, miners produce roughly 70% of the world’s mined cobalt. Across the continent, scores of projects for copper, lithium and rare earths are moving forward, some in remote regions, others near bustling towns. Meanwhile, global demographics tilt in Africa’s favor: the continent’s population is projected to swell from about 1.4 billion today to roughly 2.5 billion by 2050 and could approach four billion by the end of the century, according to United Nations projections. That’s an enormous labor pool and market waiting to be shaped.
“Two or three decades out, Africa is where demand and labor will converge,” said a senior Irish minister who was in Luanda to discuss partnership frameworks. “Europe must prepare for that shift — but on terms that respect sovereignty and trade fairness.”
Summit rooms: deals, opacity, and demands
The AU-EU meetings staged in Luanda were cordial but candid. European leaders spoke of partnership and multilateralism; African leaders pressed for practical reciprocity. It’s one thing to sign a memorandum about critical minerals, another to ensure value is created locally.
“We want more than raw exports,” an African trade official told me over lunch. “If you mine copper here and ship it out unprocessed, the long-term jobs and skills remain offshore. We are asking for refineries, for training, for revenue-sharing that lifts communities.”
Analysts watching the summit noted a familiar tension: enthusiastic declarations at the podium, but very few publicly available roadmaps on how supply chains will be transformed. “There’s been some progress,” said Adrian Joseph, a senior analyst based in Johannesburg, “but opaque contracting and missing implementation plans make it hard to judge whether promises will turn into accountable, sustainable projects.”
Other suitors at the table
Europe’s interest in securing supply chains has a geopolitical undertone. In recent years, trade spats and export controls have pushed Western capitals to diversify away from single sources. But Europe is not the only suitor. China has for decades been building deep economic ties across Africa — shipping in contractors, financing ports and airports, and backing industrial parks — and Russia has also sought influence through strategic partnerships.
“We have choices now,” said an economist at a local university. “African governments can weigh offers. But choices only matter if they’re informed, transparent and tied to benefits for people on the ground.”
Walk around Luanda and you’ll see Chinese-built projects alongside Portuguese-era architecture and a newly refurbished airport. A taxi driver pointed out the skyline with a wry smile: “There are new towers, but the electricity still goes out sometimes. The technology comes fast; services need to catch up.”
What African leaders are asking for
The ask from African representatives was direct and disciplined: markets in return for minerals; industrial investment in return for raw materials; tariff relief and predictable rules instead of opaque short-term deals. They want capacity building — the vocational schools and technical training — that will allow processing plants to hire local workers and create engineering talent on the continent.
- Local processing and beneficiation of minerals
- Tariff-free access for certain African products to European markets
- Transparent contracts and published roadmaps for project implementation
- Environmental safeguards and community compensation mechanisms
“Give us the refinery, not just the invoice,” an AU policy adviser told delegates in a packed session. “We are not raw material suppliers to be collected and forgotten.”
Risks, rules and the road ahead
The risks are real. Without robust governance, there’s a danger that mining will replicate old patterns: environmental damage, weak licensing frameworks, and limited fiscal benefit to citizens. Civil society activists and environmental groups warn that the energy transition must not be paid for by degraded ecosystems and dispossessed communities.
“Too often the promise of development justifies damage,” said an environmental campaigner who coordinates river rehabilitation work near a mining site. “We need binding social and environmental standards tied to every deal.”
Transparency, long-term investment in local industry, and fair market access — these are not simple deliverables. They require patient diplomacy, legal frameworks, and real political will from both sides.
Beyond diplomacy: what does success look like?
Success would be visible in things people touch: a processing plant that hires local engineers; a school whose graduates get jobs in regional refineries; tariff lines that let African cocoa, textiles, and specialty foods enter European markets with fewer obstacles. It would also be visible in rules — contracts posted publicly, environmental impact assessments scrutinized by independent auditors, revenues tracked and returned to communities.
Can Europe and Africa build that kind of partnership in an era of strategic rivalry? Can African governments use the competition between wealthy partners to secure deals that genuinely lift citizens rather than enrich foreign firms and a few local elites?
When you leave Luanda, the city’s contradictions stay with you: a nation rich in natural wealth, asking to convert those resources into sustained human development; outsiders offering capital and know-how, sometimes with strings attached. The challenge now is to turn summitroom promises into durable institutions and everyday improvements, so that fifty years after independence the story is not merely of wealth extracted, but of wealth shared.
What would you prioritize if you were advising African negotiators — jobs, clean energy, environmental protection, or rapid industrial growth? The answers matter, not just in Luanda, but across a continent whose future will shape the century ahead.
