Over the past decade, the European Union’s foreign policy has focused on the supposed alleged threat posed by Russia on our eastern borders. In confronting it, we have given up trade agreements that are crucial to our economy, tied our fate to that of a country such as Ukraine, and humiliated ourselves before the United States in every way possible. Yet a dispassionate assessment of European geopolitics is enough to show that our greatest threats are to be found in Africa, not along the Dnieper, and that this is also where we are suffering our greatest setbacks.
For many years, the European Union has been a major actor on the African continent. The European Development Fund, established shortly after the creation of the European Communities, was followed over time by the Yaoundé, Lomé, Cotonou and Samoa Conventions; partnership and trade agreements with numerous African countries; the Generalised System of Preferences for developing countries; the Barcelona Process and the Union for the Mediterranean; EU-Africa summits; and various European missions aimed at training African security forces. These have included the EUTMs (European Union Training Missions) in Mali, the Central African Republic and Somalia, and the EUCAPs (European Union Capacity Building Missions) in Somalia and the Sahel. Yet the results of all these efforts have fallen far short of what was expected. Although the EU remains Africa’s largest trading partner, China is close behind and is already the largest individual trading partner for most countries on the continent, while insecurity and instability continue to increase.
Since 2020, coups have taken place in Mali, Chad, Guinea-Conakry, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon, Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau. The new governments have been uniformly hostile to European policy, and those countries in which French troops had been deployed have expelled them from their territory, as have the governments of Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. As a result, what had until then been Europe’s most tangible presence in West Africa has been reduced to two small liaison detachments in Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire.
Numerous countries remain in a state of civil war, generating insecurity, power vacuums, various forms of illicit trafficking and refugee movements. This is the case in Libya, which has been disintegrating since we bombed it in the name of human rights, but also in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali. Many of these conflicts highlight the endemic lack of state capacity in Africa, a circumstance that is not always understood by those in Europe who imagine that the continent can be fixed through democratic governance and nation-building. Differences between Hutu and Tutsi communities shape the conflict involving Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the paramilitary groups supporting one side or the other. The longstanding hostility between the nomadic Tuareg populations of the north and the sedentary peoples of the south makes it impossible for anything resembling a functioning Malian state to take shape. Tribal and clan divisions make peace in Libya impossible, while Somalis continue to find it difficult to accept rule by someone from another clan, regardless of whether that person serves as president in Mogadishu.
Ethnic conflicts and state fragility combine to create particularly favourable conditions for the proliferation of non-state armed groups, another of Africa’s major scourges that Europe has failed to contain. Although there are militias with no religious basis, such as the M23 movement operating in the DRC, Islamist groups have undoubtedly been the most successful at exploiting the prevailing anarchy in many African countries to pursue their objectives. Numerous terrorist groups that emerged in the context of Islamist movements have become highly significant actors wherever they operate. These include Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) in Mali, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the various Islamic State affiliates operating across the continent. According to the latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics & Peace, 50% of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide in 2025 were concentrated in four African countries: Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
As if all this were not enough, regional rivalries between African states also persist, with the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco over primacy in the Maghreb being particularly concerning. Competition between the two powers is fuelling a rapid arms race and making European policy in North Africa extremely difficult, since it is often impossible to accommodate Algeria without antagonising Rabat, and vice versa. It should also not be forgotten that Morocco’s expansionist ambitions have direct implications for Spain and Europe. In addition to its claims to Algerian territories that it considers its own and to sovereignty over Western Sahara, the Alaouite monarchy aspires to take control of Spain’s sovereign territories in Africa.
Taken together, all these realities create a deeply troubling scenario for Europe. Instability and the lack of economic development offer little reason for optimism about the future of the migration problem, which will only worsen as Africa’s population grows. Investment and economic activity across much of Africa — some of it essential to securing the resources Europe so urgently needs — will not be able to proceed normally. They will depend on relations with volatile governments and remain permanently vulnerable to the outbreak of conflicts or the activities of anti-Western terrorist groups. Finally, the threats emanating from Africa will require an effective response from the European Union if it is not to lose relevance and legitimacy in the eyes of its southernmost Member States.
Morocco’s recent invasion of Ceuta by tens of thousands of Moroccans forms part of a pattern of hybrid warfare on Morocco’s part that is far more tangible and aggressive than the kind attributed to Moscow. It is therefore striking that it has generated so little reaction from a European Union that claims to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend the territorial integrity of its Member States. If a genuine European defence is to be built, Ceuta and Melilla must be defended by the Union with the same determination with which Spain is asked to defend Tallinn or Narva.
Whether we remain a relevant actor in Africa or are gradually replaced there by powers such as China, Russia or Turkey will depend on how we manage our interests on the continent. Above all, however, it will determine whether our societies remain viable or, instead, become amorphous masses of individuals in conflict with one another, facing enormous security challenges and increasingly limited access to the resources they need to sustain their economic activities and, ultimately, to survive.
Álvaro Silva is Director of the Master in International Relations, CEU San Pablo, Madrid
