By Thomas Brooke via Remix News,
The European Commission has pledged €4.4 billion in financial assistance for projects that support South Africa’s clean energy transition.
The move comes as tensions rise between South Africa and the European Commission’s biggest ally, the United States, following controversial laws allowing land to be expropriated without compensation to address historic land ownership disparities that critics say disproportionately target white farmers.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the Global Gateway package on Thursday at a joint press conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“This is the first significant pledge in the context of the campaign to increase renewable energy in Africa. 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 that Europe can count on South Africa,” he said in a press release ahead of the visit.
“If ever there was a time when cooperation between partners who share the same values was essential, it is now,” said President Ramaphosa.
“Now 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 “growing challenges and protectionism” around the world in a thinly veiled attack on US President Donald Trump.
Tensions between the United States and South Africa have escalated 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, which aims to redistribute farmland to black South Africans, has raised concerns about its impact on white farmers, who still own a significant portion of the farmland.
The South African government defends the law as a necessary step to correct historical injustices from apartheid and the colonial era. The new legislation allows for compulsory acquisition under certain conditions, with the aim of creating a fairer land ownership structure.
But the new administration in Washington has strongly opposed the move, with President Donald Trump responding by withholding $440 million in aid to South Africa in the first days of his second term. His administration argues that the law is racially discriminatory against white landowners and has even proposed providing sanctuary to South African farmers facing land confiscation.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio then 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 X wrote. “Expropriating private property. Using the 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 indulge in anti-Americanism.”
The European Commission clearly sees things differently, allocating billions of European taxpayers’ money to an African country.
His announcement about Xi drew significant criticism from some quarters.
“You are giving €4.4 billion of European taxpayer money to a corrupt, incompetent, anti-white genocidal regime that cannot even maintain its current energy infrastructure. Insanity!” wrote Dries Van Langenhove, a Belgian national activist in Flanders.
Dutch conservative commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek added: “Of course, 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 most dangerous person in Europe and I will not stop until the EU is destroyed and he is in prison.”
“Billions for the racist and thoroughly corrupt regime in South Africa,” noted Belgian MP Tom Vandendriessche, while Dutch MP Setiatia Stöteler from Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) added that von der Leyen should be “ashamed of herself.”
