• The European Investment Bank (EIB), dedicated to serving strategic EC projects, is negotiating multi-million-euro loans and grants to the South African government to help its major logistics infrastructure become more efficient, use renewables and “decarbonise” its economy.
• The EC is passive in the face of South Africa’s aggressiveness in plant health: Brussels has not yet reacted to the record number of rejections due to the presence of citrus fruits infected with the ‘Citrus Black Spot’ fungus last season, nor has it demanded that its orange shipments comply with the compulsory cold treatment for ‘False Colding Moth’; Pretoria, on the contrary, has questioned the controls and tests in European ports and has denounced the EU before the World Trade Organisation.
• Only Europe could dare, in the current context of justified agricultural protests, to finance third countries that refuse to comply with European phytosanitary regulations in order to preserve the plant health of our plantations”.

The operation now being finalised in favour of South Africa was confirmed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) itself recently and will be for a significant amount, probably in the hundreds of millions of euros. In fact, the one already approved at the end of last year in favour of the Development Bank of Southern Africa involved the EIB granting EUR 300 million to finance private projects linked to renewable energy. Now the beneficiary will be the state itself – which owns the public company Transnet, which operates the country’s main port facilities and railway network – which could be the holder of these loans on preferential terms. These loans, and perhaps even European funds, will help modernise these infrastructures, make them more energy efficient and contribute to “decarbonising” what is currently one of the world’s leading coal producers. This financial support will therefore boost the local mining sector but also the South African fruit and vegetable trade in the country which is also – after Spain – the second largest exporter of fresh citrus fruit in the world. It is not difficult to understand why the Spanish Citrus Interprofessional (Intercitrus) describes the initiative as “a nonsense” that demonstrates the “insensitivity” with which Brussels treats its production sector despite the agricultural protests that continue to take place all over the continent. This is what its president, Inmaculada Sanfeliu, says, who calls on the EU “to demonstrate with facts its will to put an end to the asymmetries of obligations between EU producers and producers from third countries”.

According to the South African press a few days ago, the operation that is now being finalised with the executive headed by Cyril Ramaphosa is part of the agreement signed in 2021 to promote the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). Under this agreement, South Africa, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, together with the EU itself through the EIB, as well as the US and the UK, committed to finance €8.8 billion to support the African country’s efforts to decarbonise its economy.

The EU’s green policies are thus punishing European citrus sector in two ways.  On the one hand, they do so in the European market, where the sector competes with citrus fruits from third countries that are much cheaper to produce and do not have to comply with such requirements, amidst all kinds of restrictions and costly obligations. On the other hand, now the financial resources that the EU puts at the service of these policies are also being used to boost this unfair competition that blatantly and deliberately disregards European phytosanitary regulations”, Sanfeliu laments in this respect in clear reference to the South African case. “Only in Brussels could it be conceivable that the world’s leading exporter of fresh citrus fruits – Spain – would come to the aid of the second largest – South Africa – to help it improve its position in our main market – the EU – without first demanding reciprocity and compliance with EU regulations,” adds the Intercitrus president. The head of the interprofessional organisation is referring to the passive attitude that the EC has shown up to now when it comes to enforcing the regulations that guarantee plant health in EU territory. Non-compliance which, on a recurrent basis, causes European imports of South African citrus fruits to bring pests and diseases which, on many occasions (as in the case of the ‘South African Cotonet’), become established in Spanish and European production areas.

Indeed, last season, South Africa accumulated a record 51 rejections in European ports after detecting the presence of citrus affected by the quarantine fungus known as ‘Citrus Black Spot’ in its shipments. At this stage, the EC has not yet taken any measures to improve controls or to ensure better plant health for European citrus growers.

On the other hand, the southern country has accumulated two consecutive seasons without complying with the cold treatment that the EU regulated in 2022 to avoid the arrival of another dangerous pest, whose combat is also regulated as a priority by Brussels, the so-called ‘False Colding Moth’. Intercitrus has demanded that measures be imposed to verify compliance at destination, in a simple and automatic way, and has proposed -also without success- that this treatment be extended to mandarins and grapefruit, which can also host and transfer this pest.

The response of the South African authorities and exporters to such events, far from being resigned, has been most belligerent: in 2022, their government denounced the EU before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) because it questioned the cold treatment imposed against the ‘False Colding Moth’ and, with regard to the ‘Citrus Black Spot’, it is threatening to open another panel in the WTO and its operators have dared to doubt the efficiency and rigour of the Community inspectors and the tests they carry out on their fruit.

The EIB is a Luxembourg-based Community body that provides financing for projects that contribute to achieving EU objectives, both inside and outside the EU. Its Board of Directors consists of one director from each Member State – who are the bank’s own shareholders – and one from the EC.