Is Italy replacing France as the EU's Africa liaison?

I'm in Rome today, where President von der Leyen is joining Prime Minister Meloni in co-chairing a summit merging the EU's Africa policy with Italy's Mattei Plan.

“The Italians are a people of pioneers. They will make Africa fertile with their work, and they will civilise it with their culture.”

These were the words of Benito Mussolini in a speech in Bologna in 1936. Italy had come late to the game in grabbing “a slice of this magnificent African cake,” as Belgian King Leopold II put it at the 1884 Berlin Conference. But Italy had already, in 1911, been able to grab the slices that the other Western powers had previously deemed off limits (the Ottoman Empire’s remaining North African provinces), and that year Mussolini invaded and annexed the independent kingdom of Ethiopia, which had also been deemed off limits by the others. That invasion was the final act of European colonisation in Africa before decolonisaton began after the second world war.

After the war, Mussolini’s fascist inner circle formed the Italian Social Movement, the political party which unabashedly cast itself as the defender of Italian fascism’s legacy. In 1995 the party was renamed National Alliance, and after some slight moderation in its rhetoric they were welcomed into a governing coalition by centre-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - the first time a fascist party had been brought into government in non-Iberian Europe since the end of the second world war (followed shortly after by the FPO entering government in Austria). In 2012, NA morphed into the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, continuing even today to use the same logo designed by Mussolini’s fascist inner circle for MSI. In 2022 that party won the most votes in the national election, making its leader Giorgia Meloni prime minister. She now heads the most right-wing government in the history of the Italian Republic, in an alliance with Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega (formerly branded as the secessionist Northern League) and Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia.

Today that government is making a bid to take a leadership role in the EU’s Africa policy, which for decades has been led by fellow former coloniser France. For many years the EU’s outreach to Africa has been handicapped by the legacies left by European colonisers. That memory, still raw with people as young as 45 having been born under colonial rule, has proven to be a major barrier when it comes to EU-Africa relations. And it is why in recent years so many African countries have turned to Russia and China, who don’t have colonial histories on the continent, for their development and security needs. It has not helped the the European countries most able to lead the EU’s outreach because of linguistic and economic connections are also, for obvious reasons, the ones who were the most active colonisers. And because the UK never took a very active interest in the EU’s foreign policy, initiatives have largely come from France. From Sarkozy’s fizzled “Mediterranean Union” to Hollande’s Sahel strategy to Macron’s frenzy of initiatives, France has taken the reigns of the EU’s Africa mostly because nobody else was interested.

But Giorgia Meloni has made migration from Africa her chief political issue, and she has sought to go beyond the existing partnerships with North Africa aiming to stop sub-Saharan migration flows to start exploring initiatives with the sub-Saharan countries themselves. Last year she hosted an Italy-Africa Summit in Rome with 45 African leaders where she unveiled the Mattei Plan, a strategic initiative named after Enrico Mattei, founder of the Italian energy giant Eni. The idea is to address the root economic causes of mass migration from Africa to Europe through investment in energy, infrastructure, health and education. But it came only with a €3 billion budget, a drop in the bucket that would hardly make a dent in the lofty goals it sets out, particularly as Italy faces competitor investors in Africa with major budgets - China and Russia.

So now Meloni is trying to bring in EU money behind the plan. She has successfully lobbied for today’s summit in Rome dedicated to the Mattei Plan to be co-chaired by Ursula von der Leyen. The European Commission president’s commitment to be here is being seen as a tacit signal that she will put the EU’s €150 billion Global Gateway budget behind the Mattei Plan - a plan which is under Rome’s control.

The meeting will discuss a number of ongoing projects but the most important is the Lobito Corridor. It’s a project to connect the Southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Belgian colony) and northwestern Zambia (former British colony) to regional and global trade markets via the port of Lobito in Angola (former Portuguese colony). Leaders from all three are here in Rome today. There are also Mattei Plan projects in Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal and Tanzania. Italy has also activated a Multi-Financial Fund with the African Development Bank and signed a co-financing agreement with the World Bank. Other projects include a center for youth training in Algeria named after Mattei, a wastewater treatment plant in Tunisia and a national training initiative throughout Africa.

These are exactly the type of policies that migration policy experts have long been pushing for, to address the push factors rather than trying to block the pull factors. But given the governing party that’s pushing through this initiative, there is plenty of suspicion about where this is coming from and whether the commitment is real. And nowhere is this suspicion stronger than in Paris, which has for years been the EU capital leading African initiatives. So is there real cause for suspicion, or this simply a case of French jealousy?

France’s Africa policy, and its leadership of EU Africa policy, has long been criticised for being at the least misguided and at most a form of neocolonialism. When he became president in 2017, Emmanuel Macron tried to distance himself from the legacy of previous eras of French Africa policy. He promised a new era, one which would have greater engagement with non-state actors in Africa rather than funnelling money toward corrupt governments. He changed the format of the traditional Africa-France summits, not inviting African government representatives but rather non-state and civil society actors. But these efforts don’t seem to have paid off, and most in Africa failed to see a change. When French troops were kicked out of key countries in the Sahel (Mali in 2022, Burkino Faso and Niger in 2024) it was a huge setback for Macron’s ambition to change the African narrative about France. The reality is that governments are still where the power is, and by alienating them Macron seems to have given the initiative to others who do not have qualms about dealing with corrupt governments - Russia and China.

It is these types of deals that Meloni has pursued since taking office. Her much-criticised deals with Libya and Tunisia to stop migrant crossings are nothing new, they are largely continuations of previous Italian government policy started by Silvio Berlusconi. But under Meloni the Italian government has engaged in more of these types of deals, and they have started to influence domestic policy. For instance, the government was greatly criticised when they facilitated the release of a Libyan general wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, allegedly as part of her migration-control agreement with Libya. A judicial investigation about it is ongoing.

This is where the Mattei Plan, while it seems to strike all the right notes about reducing the push factors for migration, comes in for criticism. NGOs have said the Mattei Plan is even going beyond the problematic nature of the existing agreements with Tunisia and Libya, making quid-pro-quo arrangements with authoritarian regimes. African Union Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat has warned that Rome bypassed local consultation, branding the plan “neo‑colonial” and urging a “paradigm shift”. Critics have also highlighted Italy’s energy-focused agenda, often tied to fossil fuels, suspecting collusion with corrupt officials and inflated fees.

The proof will be in the pudding. Meloni is now promising a new era for Africa relations just like Macron did back in 2017. These are both former colonial powers, which comes with enormous baggage in their relations with Africa. But one of these governments is currently controlled by a party that is directly descended from the regime that is responsible for one of the most brutal colonial systems of the previous century. This is a party whose members still routinely make racist statements and glorify the country’s fascist past. Though Meloni has condemned such comments, this is still the largest party in the Italian parliament we’re talking about.

Opinions will differ about whether Macron’s efforts to turn the page were genuine, or whether he really put the work in to change the neocolonial patterns that have marked Europe’s relations with Africa over the past 60 years. But what some will see at today’s Rome summit is an EU that is turning over leadership of its Africa relations to a far-right government in Rome, in an abandonment of any aspiration to something better. Others will see an Africa policy that is becoming both more pragmatic and more focused on solutions on that continent rather than here.

We will see what comes out of today’s summit. Of particular interest will be how much von der Leyen is willing to commit the EU to backing the Mattei Plan - knowing that it will anger Paris. It is clear von der Leyen knows who has political capital at the moment and who does not. But if leadership of Africa relations is passing from Paris to Rome, it will have major implications. Not only because Italy is a different country than France, but also because France is under liberal centrist leadership while Italy is under far right leadership.