Eighth EU-South Africa summit set for 13 March 2025
Brussels, Belgium (PANA) - European Council President António Costa, together with the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will represent the EU in the 8th EU-South Africa summit, which will take place on 13 March 2025 in South Africa.
According to the official announcement released on Wednesday, the main goal of the summit is to further strengthen the EU’s relations with South Africa, which is a strategic partner for the EU amidst a challenging geopolitical context.
“I am looking forward to the summit and our discussions on improving economic relations, energy transition, security and defence, sustainable value chains and multilateral cooperation,” said António Costa, President of the European Council.
“We are dedicated to strengthening the long-standing and geostrategic partnership between the EU and South Africa, especially given the current geopolitical challenges,” he added.
The summit will provide an important opportunity to advance on some of the most pressing global and regional issues which are also part of South Africa’s G20 Presidency and to discuss current geopolitical challenges, including Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and the current escalation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It will also serve as a platform to make progress on several spheres of bilateral cooperation. Areas of cooperation include economic, trade and investment relations, security and defence, energy, research and innovation and good governance.
The EU-South Africa Strategic Partnership has been in place since 2007, and since then, numerous high-level meetings have been held, including over twenty sectorial dialogues, an annual human rights dialogue and the joint cooperation council (JCC).
The 16th session of the EU-South Africa JCC was held in Brussels on 15 January 2025 and was an important step in the preparations for the ministerial political dialogue on 19 February and the upcoming 8th EU-South Africa summit.
From an economic standpoint, South Africa is the EU’s largest trading partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, with €49 billion of total trade in goods in 2023, and the EU is South Africa’s top source of foreign direct investment, totalling 53.7% in 2022.
Under the multi-annual indicative programme 2021-2027 for South Africa, the EU allocated €129 million in grant funding towards its partnership with the country for 2021-2024.
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