ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how from the mid-2000s the EU sought to rectify its waning presence in Africa and assesses the extent to which Africa became part of Europe’s external energy policy. The fact that the EU introduced new energy initiatives primarily through a development angle gave its presence a number of strong points, including a relatively tighter link between energy interests and on-the-ground governance reform efforts than that seen in other producer regions. The European presence had increasingly fallen behind that of the US and China. The US announced that it would aim to source 25 per cent of its oil imports from West Africa by 2015. The EU’s focus on energy within its Africa policies indeed lagged far behind the attention it received in other producer regions. The EU Energy Initiative for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development was launched in 2002 at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
