EU’s first-ever services trade deal with African states will give European firms near-unfettered access to Mauritius and Seychelles’ offshore financial hubs.
Benjamin Fox
EU financial services outfits will soon have unfettered access to two of Africa’s main offshore financial centres under a new trade agreement announced on Wednesday (10 June).
EU Commission officials have concluded talks with Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles – known as the ESA4 – to upgrade a pre-existing economic partnership agreement.
In a statement, the commission said that the new agreement would match free trade in goods with “reciprocal preferential market access” for services and investment, digital trade, public procurement, and competition policy.
Although trade with the four African island states is relatively modest at a combined €9.7bn in 2024, Mauritius and Seychelles have two of the continent’s largest offshore financial services sectors.
The deal would make it “easier and more predictable for EU firms to supply services in the ESA States, including in sectors such as professional and business services, maritime transport, telecommunication, and financial services,” said the commission.
EU and ESA4 firms will also have near-complete access to each other’s public procurement markets and investors will be treated the same as domestic investors.
In covering services, as well as harmonising rules on state subsidies, intellectual property and a raft of technical non-tariff barriers to trade, the agreement is the first of its kind with African states to go beyond goods trade. Officials say that it will be open to the 12 other members of the Eastern and Southern Africa trade bloc.
The agreement is the latest of a series of new free-trade pacts that the EU has brokered over the past 18 months, and the first with African states, as part of the EU Commission’s efforts to diversify the bloc’s trade.
The main regional prize for Brussels is to revamp its trade relations with South Africa, the continent’s main economic power.
Since mid-2025, EU and South African officials have been in negotiations on an improved trade deal, and a Memorandum of Understanding on critical minerals, under which the EU would offer investment in South Africa’s mining industry in exchange for access to minerals.
But other African leaders are also in the queue.
Earlier this week, following meetings with Kenya’s president William Ruto, the EU Commission announced new investment totalling €54m in a series of digital infrastructure and transport projects.
Ruto has been in Europe since the start of this week, also touring Berlin and Paris to encourage EU governments and businesses to increase investment in Kenya.
Ruto will also attend the France-hosted G7 summit along with leaders from India, Brazil, South Korea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, all of whom are either in the process or have recently agreed on revamped trade pacts with the EU.
