South Africa and European Union Critical Minerals Partnership: Understanding the Significance and Implications for South Africa
On April 8th, 2025, SARW hosted a webinar which discussed the CTIP. In this article, our interns, Georges Mbuyu and Paseka Mmako summarised this dynamic conversation.
1. Introduction
South Africa and the European Union (EU) have come together to form a partnership called the EU-South Africa Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (EU-RSA CTIP). This partnership was officially launched at the EU-South Africa summit in Cape Town on 13 March 2025. The CTIPs have become the latest policy tool to advance the EU’s business interests in a faster and flexible way. South Africa is Africa’s leading economy and any deal with major global powers raises geopolitical interests. More so, South Africa is one of the countries with abundant critical energy transition minerals that are needed to power the global energy transition, defence, and electronics industries. How then does this non-binding EU-SA CTIPs advance South Africa’s own ambition to industrialised using its critical minerals?
2. Aspects of SA-EU Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (CTIP) [1]
The EU-RSA CTIP is not a strict trade deal with legal commitments but rather an agreement to facilitate more flexible cooperation between the two trading partners to promote trade and investment on clean energy projects, skills and technology development, and strategic industry development in clean supply chains. The idea to help South Africa develop cleaner industries is noble. The CTIP is structured around several key priorities. These include: Investment, regulatory cooperation, barriers to trade and investment, and questions of demand security.
However, as the webinar panellists argued, the CTIP must be read against a geopolitical background where the EU is part of a warfare to access to critical energy transition minerals and therefore safeguard the EU’s economic security.
[1] At the time of the webinar, the full detail of the partnership was not yet made public.
3. Funding from the Global Gateway Investment Package of €4.7 billion
The CTIP waves a €4.7 billion Global Gateway investment package, which will channel financial support through EU grants and concessional funding from European and South African development banks. According to the European Parliament, “The goal is to bring all bilateral work in the selected clean sectors together in one coherent yet flexible framework.” Additionally, the partners posit that the investment package aligns with South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership, which is structured to help South Africa shift away from its coal dominated electricity production towards cleaner and renewable energy systems.
4. Key Policy Reflections
From the webinar discussion, key policy recommendations were suggested. Highlights (with additional research) are summarised below.
4.1 Need to build new standards for mining supply chain
South Africa with minerals like manganese, PGMs, copper, nickel and chromium is a big player in the global energy transition. South Africa wants to fully participate in the manufacturing of green technologies, including the automotive sector value chain. See Geared for Growth South Africa’s Automotive Industry Master Plan to 2035
Gaylor Montmasson-Clair, the director and co-founder of Southern Transitions, argued that South Africa must reimagine its mineral value chain. This includes advocating for new standards in supply pricing and beneficiation. Gaylor recommended that industrial development through joint industrial clusters, technology transfers, and strategic financing mechanisms. He underlined that partnerships like the CTIP must be “more than just words on paper” to meaningfully benefit South Africa’s green minerals industrial competitiveness. The emphasis for South Africa must be fostering industrial development through technology transfer, access to market, and joint industrial clusters. The EU SA partnership provide a great opportunity for South Africa to fast-track its mineral value addition ambition.
4.2 The partnership must prioritise South Africa’s needs
According to Julia Poliscanova, Senior Director at Transport & Environment (T&E) in Brussels, the EU enters the CTIP with South Africa with a strong regulatory position in place such as the Sustainable Battery Regulation and Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) which shapes its external engagements. She argued that for a focused and targeted CTIP, supporting specific projects such as battery-minerals processing over speculative sectors like green hydrogen would be beneficial for both South Africa and the EU.
One of the major challenges that African countries, including South Africa face, is access to cheap finances. Ms. Poliscanova proposed that South Africa could consider bringing in financing from the Clean Trade Investment Partnership to invest into the steel or aluminium facilities in South Africa which would allow the country to apply cleaner technologies so it can comply with potential barriers to trade (under the guise of climate action) such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Instead, there is a need for the CTIP to promote South Africa’s supply side capacity to export its minerals and finished green technologies to the EU market.
4.3 South Africa Needs Africa to engage the EU as a Southern African Regional Bloc
This point was advanced by Professor Mathe. advocated for strategic foresight in minerals policy, linking resource governance with geopolitical positioning. He emphasised the importance of regional integration in the context of SADC and the African Union to increase collective bargaining leverage as a united force. The recent EU strategy of concluding bilateral partnerships with African critical minerals producing countries is weakening African countries attempts to work together. Professor Mathe stressed the importance of education and training to ensure skills matches the needs of the green tech industry.
4.4 South Africa needs Policies and Strategies to engage the EU: The Need for A Defined Critical Minerals Strategy
Dr. Xaba focused on strategic mineral policy development. She emphasised that this must flow from a well-structured criticality assessment to ensure national critical mineral strategies are aligned to South Africa’s domestic realities. She stated, “To manage this growing risk associated with access to and the production of minerals, countries and industries who are most vulnerable to these supply disruptions have undertaken risk assessments that have been or resulted in the development of a country or sector’s critical minerals list or critical mineral strategy.” She added, “This is to better identify sources of vulnerabilities along mine production value chains, as well as some of the related weaknesses in the global supply chain. This is why we are all looking forward to South Africa’s Critical Metals and Minerals Strategy.”
4.5 South Africa must avoid repeating failed practices, equity and value addition a must
Sodhie Naicker warned against the risks of the SA-EU CTIP. He stressed the lack of value retention in South Africa’s current mining and minerals development model. Naicker suggested that the EU must avail capital for early-stage exploration, infrastructure co-investment, and joint technology development in rare metallurgy and recycling. In this way, he noted, the SA-EU deal becomes mutually beneficial, “What we [South Africa] lack is value retention. Despite decades of discussion around beneficiation, we still export raw or semi-processed materials. The EU wants critical raw material that secures input for its industries but says very little about building capacity in sourcing countries.”
“We need EU equity in processing precursor materials and component manufacturing, just as much EU firms want equity in mining projects.” “We don’t want to become a warehouse of raw materials for the EU’s energy transition”, Naicker powerfully concluded.
A more holistic investment strategy is required, Mr. Naicker argued. This includes the need for cooperative infrastructure for industrial clusters, power, water, and digital infrastructure, not be just for exporting, but for value-adding zones in mining districts. The CTIPs must facilitate joint venture value adding investment structures, not one-sided deals that keep South Africa solely as an exporter of raw materials. According to Naicker, “We need EU equity in processing precursor materials and component manufacturing, just as much EU firms want equity in mining projects.” He powerfully concluded: “We don’t want to become a warehouse of raw materials for the EU’s energy transition.”
6. Looking Ahead
The EU-RSA CTIP is a first of its kind and not legally binding. Because it lacks transparency, South Africa must tread carefully. Can South Africa benefit from this partnership? The jury is still out there and lies in the detail of this emerging framework and will depend on the following factors from this webinar:
- South Africa’s national critical minerals and metals strategy, and how this is aligned with mining, energy and industrial policies.
- Investment Partnerships that will emerge from the CTIPs, especially the need for joint ventures in refining and manufacturing, not just extraction.
- Leveraging SADC regional critical minerals diplomacy for stronger negotiation power and support for Regional Value Chains.
- Push for EU financing mechanisms that support infrastructure, early-stage exploration, and compliance with EU regulatory frameworks such as CBAM.
7. References
DTIC. (2020) “MINERAL BENEFICIATION” https://www.thedtic.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Beneficiation19-June2020.pdf
European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS). (2025). Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships: A new instrument in the EU’s trade policy toolbox. Author: Marc Jütten. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/769576/EPRS_BRI(2025)769576_EN.pdf
Matikinca A. (2024) “Critical futures: What SA wants from its transition minerals” https://mg.co.za/the-green-guardian/2024-12-05-critical-futures-what-sa-wants-from-its-transition-minerals/
South Africa-European Union critical mineral partnership: Understanding the Significance and Implications for South Africa’s Just Energy transition Partnership and Energy minerals Sector (Webinar Link)
Woldu, B. (2023) “Mineral Value-Addition in Africa: A Path to Local Downstream Production” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371250262_Mineral_Value-Addition_in_Africa_A_Path_to_Local_Downstream_Production