Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,
The European Commission has pledged financial assistance to projects supporting the clean energy transition in South Africa to the tune of €4.4 billion.
The move comes at a time of increased tensions between South Africa and the European Commission’s largest ally, the United States, following controversial legislation that permits land expropriation without compensation to address historical land ownership disparities, which critics say disproportionately targets White farmers.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the Global Gateway package on Thursday in a joint press conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“It’s a significant first pledge in the context of the Scaling up Renewables in Africa campaign. I hope it will inspire many others to contribute!” von der Leyen posted on X.
“Europe values its partnership with South Africa, just as I value my friendship with President Ramaphosa. South Africa can count on Europe. And I know Europe can count on South Africa,” she said in a press release ahead of the visit.
“If ever there was a time when it was absolutely necessary for partners who share the same values to work together, it is now,” said President Ramaphosa.
“This is the time to stand together for what we believe in, democracy, the rule of law, including respect for international law and international humanitarian law,” he added, noting the “growing challenges and protectionism” around the world in a thinly-veiled attack on U.S. President Donald Trump.
Tensions between the United States and South Africa have intensified following the implementation of South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2024, a controversial law that allows the government to seize land without compensating its owners. The policy, aimed at redistributing farmland to Black South Africans, has sparked concerns about its impact on White farmers, who still own a significant share of agricultural land.
The South African government defends the law as a necessary step to correct historical injustices from the apartheid and colonial eras. The new legislation enables expropriation under specific conditions, with the goal of creating a more equitable land ownership structure.
However, the new administration in Washington D.C. has strongly opposed this move, with President Donald Trump responding by suspending $440 million in aid to South Africa in the first few days of his second term. His administration claims the law amounts to racial discrimination against White landowners, and he has even proposed offering asylum to South African farmers facing potential land seizures.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently announced a boycott of the G20 summit in Johannesburg last month, calling the land reform policy a violation of property rights and contrary to American values.
“South Africa is doing very bad things,” Rubio wrote on X. “Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, and sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
The European Commission clearly sees things differently, committing billions in European taxpayers’ cash to the African nation.
Her announcement on X was met with considerable criticism from some quarters.
“You are giving €4.4 billion in European taxpayers’ money to a corrupt, incompetent and anti-White, genocidal regime that cannot even maintain its current energy infrastructure. Madness!” wrote Dries Van Langenhove, a Belgian national activist in Flanders.
Dutch conservative commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek added: “Sure, why not give €4.4 billion of our taxpayers’ money to a genocidal anti-White regime for a useless ‘energy transition’? This unelected tyrant is the single most dangerous person in Europe and I will not stop doing what I do till the EU is abolished and she’s in jail.”
“Billions for the racist and thoroughly corrupt regime in South Africa,” noted Belgian MEP Tom Vandendriessche while Setiatia Stöteler, a Dutch MEP from Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) added von der Leyen should be “ashamed of herself.”
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