In the aftermath of a devastating World War II, six countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) came together in 1951 to pool their coal and steel production, and to form the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The six decided it was better to work together to build their countries, rather than fighting each other to protect it. The ECSC was a deliberate attempt to make conflict between former adversaries not only unlikely, but structurally impossible.
Seventy-five years later, the ECSC has transformed into a European Union (EU) with 27 Member States, uniting roughly 450 million people in the largest trading bloc in the world, and the world’s biggest exporter of manufactured goods and services. The EU gradually developed a single market, a Customs Union, and a common currency, the Euro, used by 21 of its Member States. The economic community shaped formal political and security structures, including a diplomatic service with 144 EU Delegations and offices located around the world, including Ghana.
Delegations serve as EU “embassies”, representing the bloc’s interest and working with governments to implement policies and shared priorities. They are typically responsible for political dialogue with host governments, and advance the collective interest of the European Union, and its member states.
The EU offers investment collaboration, trade facilitation and business development, promotes public diplomacy and multilateralism to achieve common goals, and provides development support.
The EU Delegation to Ghana
The EU Delegation to Ghana convenes 10 Member States (Austria, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, and Spain) represented in Accra, as well as 12 members accredited to Ghana from abroad. Our work extends to public diplomacy and outreach, engaging directly with Ghanaian educational institutions and youth on a variety of topics, ranging from youth inclusion, governance and security, to the green and digital transitions, Erasmus+ scholarships and Horizon Europe research cooperation.
This year, the Delegation of the European Union to Ghana commemorates 50 years of physical presence in Ghana. In recent years, the EU’s role in Ghana has become less focused on development support, to become increasingly political. The EU remains Ghana’s number one development partner, but also its number one investor, number one trade partner, and increasingly, the number one security partner.
Under the Ghana-EU Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (iEPA), the European Union guarantees permanent, duty-free, and quota-free access to its market for all Ghanaian goods with total trade between the EU and Ghana currently at EUR 7.1 billion. 2025 saw a 23% increase in Ghanaian exports to the EU, resulting in a Ghanaian surplus in our trade relations.
Guided by its Global Gateway Strategy, Team Europe’s flagship infrastructure and investment financing offer, with EUR 1 billion allocated to Ghana, the European Union is working with Ghana to implement projects spanning transport infrastructure, local vaccine production, sustainable energy and digitalisation, education and skills development priorities. We aim to increase investment levels even further, helping Ghana towards a more attractive business climate.
The EU has provided more than EUR 100 million in security and defence equipment, training and programming, aimed largely at strengthening Ghana’s security institutions against the spill-over of violent extremism from the Sahel, alongside continuing cooperation on maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.
This strong collaboration has been sealed through a landmark Security and Defence Partnership, signed earlier this year by Ghana’s Vice President, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas. The partnership agreement makes Ghana the first African country to join this strategic arrangement with the European Union.
Priorities for the Future
The partnership between the EU and Ghana is one of shared interests, and mutual respect. Ghana is valued as a stable democracy in West Africa with genuine credibility in regional diplomacy and peacekeeping, a status that matters more, as competition for influence on the continent intensifies.
Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine, at Europe’s doorstep, has further catalysed our interest-driven foreign policy. Now that Russia is losing—running out of men for the war and for the economy—the European Union will only sustain its interest-driven policy. This won’t affect EU-Ghana relations, as EU and Ghana interest are already aligned.
The EU frames its ambitions in Ghana not as a demand for alignment but as an invitation: it does not ask Ghana to choose between partners, only to build equal partnerships around interests both sides already share: regional security, economic growth, democratic values, the green and digital transitions, and a rules-based multilateral order.
As the EU celebrates fifty years of cooperation, we reaffirm our commitment to working together for the next fifty years and beyond with Ghana.
Submitted by: European Union Delegation in Ghana
