Uganda’s Museveni: EU trying to ‘control the world politically’
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has accused the EU of "trying to control the world politically" as the bloc unveiled €200m in support for the East African country’s businesses.
Speaking at the EU-Uganda business forum in Kampala on 7 March, the Ugandan president claimed that the EU was guilty of seeking "to mix politics with business".
That remark was viewed as a reference to some of the EU’s Green Deal policies, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and new rules on supply chain due diligence, both of which are set to increase the costs for African businesses seeking to export to the EU. Both laws are part of the EU’s plans to reach net zero carbon emissions.
"You need to advise governments in Europe to get out of that mistake, because there is no way you can control the world politically," Museveni told diplomats and business representatives.
The European Commission is using a series of business forums in African countries to offer tailored investment programmes as part of its €300bn Global Gateway scheme, as it seeks to strengthen economic ties between the EU and Africa and counter the influence of China, Russia and other international players.
At the three-day forum, which concluded on Thursday (7 March), the EU’s international partnerships commissioner Jutta Urpilainen announced the launch of eight new projects with a total financial envelope of over €200m to support small businesses and digital infrastructure projects.
"Europeans investing here is common sense and strategic," said Museveni.
However, he pointed to the fact that African countries currently export large quantities of raw materials to Europe, rather than more valuable finished products.
"One of the disablers of business has been (but it’s changing a bit now), the unfair division of labour in the world where Africa and some of the other places like Latin America produce raw materials and then the raw materials are taken to Europe and processed there into finished products," said Museveni.
"This is very dangerous. When you hear the chaos in some African countries now, the original problem is this one here. Those areas have got a lot of natural resources, but they have been exporting raw materials," he said.
It is a common complaint of African leaders that their trade arrangements with the EU have not included provisions to encourage regional or national industrialisation, Raw materials currently account for around 40 percent of Africa’s exports to the EU.
A similar point was made by German centre-left MEP, Joachim Schuster, who drafted a European Parliament paper on the review of the EU’s trade deal with six countries in Southern Africa.
The EU’s model of Economic Partnership Agreements with African regional blocs sees countries "serving mainly as commodity exporters," Schuster told EUobserver, describing this as "a weakness within the EPA structure."