José Tiago de Sousa is an economist, a PhD candidate in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies at NOVA FCT—in partnership with the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences—and an ESG strategist. Hailing from Mindelo (Vila do Conde), he holds a Bachelor’s in Economics and a Master’s in Finance from the University of Porto’s Faculty of Economics (FEP). He has twice received the U.Porto Volunteer Award (2017/2018 and 2018/2019) and was honoured with the Active Citizenship Award in its humanitarian category, presented by the then-President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. He took part in European Solidarity Corps humanitarian missions in Italy, Poland, and Turkey, and contributed to European projects on sustainability and gender equality. He has worked as a Senior Sustainability Specialist and, among others, as ESG Officer.
Europe in Tents, Africa at the Table – The ESG Perspective (Opinion by José Tiago Sousa)
For decades, Europe presented itself as the bearer of universal reason, human rights and good governance. From an ESG perspective, this was always more than a narrative. It was a claim to governance authority, backed by a strong sense of social licence: the idea that Europe had earned the right to set standards and discipline its partners. In practice, that language often masked a persistent paternalism. Aid was conditioned; trade was liberalised in one direction and protected in another; African states were treated as pupils who had to be disciplined into virtue. Decolonial thinkers have long described this as the continuation of colonial hierarchy by other means. The European Union’s conditionality has been criticised in exactly these terms: as a “new form of colonialism” that imposes an ideological agenda while keeping African economies subordinate. In ESG language, this is a governance risk and a policy-coherence problem.
October 2026 sharpens the contradiction. The same Europe that demands austerity, border control and market openness from African partners is now confronted by its own citizens demanding that the state intervene in housing, cap rents, protect farmers and guarantee a dignified life. In Portugal, students say openly that the government’s legislative changes are insufficient; that precarious work and soaring rents make leaving the parental home a fantasy. The housing crisis is, in ESG terms, a material social risk. It affects young people, workers, families and intergenerational cohesion. In that moment, the old civilising mission loses its voice. Europe cannot convincingly lecture Africa when its own young people are living in tents. This is the first decolonial effect of the protests: the provincialisation of Europe. Europe becomes one region among others, with its own crises, its own failures and its own need for… repair!
The second effect is the collapse of the double standard. For years, African producers have watched Europe preach free trade while subsidising its own agriculture, imposing sanitary and environmental standards that function as barriers, and protecting its markets when convenient. The CBAM, pesticide rules and border carbon mechanisms are not neutral technical instruments; they shape who can sell and who cannot. In ESG terms, they are environmental policy tools with significant social and trade impacts, and their coherence and proportionality deserve scrutiny. The farmers’ protests expose this architecture from the inside. When European farmers demand protection against “unfair competition,” they reveal that the liberal order Europe exported was never applied at home with the same rigour. That exposure weakens Brussels’ negotiating position and creates a reputational and governance risk. African governments and the African Union can now point to the contradiction with renewed clarity: practise at home what you preach abroad. The double standard, once a quiet instrument of power, becomes a political liability.
There is also a more hopeful, human effect: transnational solidarity. In October 2026, the housing struggles in Portugal connect with movements in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. The occupations in Porto and Madrid, the marches in Braga, the student protests in Coimbra — these are not isolated local grievances. They are part of a generation’s refusal to accept that housing should be a speculative asset rather than a right. And that refusal resonates across the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic. It resonates with young Africans demanding that the resources of their countries serve their people first, not distant shareholders. It resonates with movements against debt, austerity and extraction. The protests create a language of dignity that can travel — and, from an ESG standpoint, they create space for more genuine stakeholder engagement and for a just transition that is not defined only in European capitals.
This is where the decolonial promise becomes concrete. Solidarity is no longer charity from Europe to Africa. It is a shared analysis of a shared system. When French farmers block warehouses of products from Western Sahara, they are not only defending their prices; they are also naming a colonial occupation and Europe’s complicity in it. When diasporic movements in Europe protest deportations and racial profiling, they are exposing the colonial continuities inside European migration policy. When Portuguese students say “we cannot live like this,” they echo the same demand heard in Nairobi, Dakar or Johannesburg: a decent life is not a privilege. These convergences do not automatically produce equality, but they create the political space in which equality can be demanded — and they strengthen the social dimension of due diligence and accountability across value chains.
It would be dishonest to ignore the negative effects. The same protests can turn inward and become protectionist. Farmers’ anger can close markets that African exporters need. A European economic crisis can absorb resources and attention that should go to development cooperation. Portugal’s housing emergency can push Africa down the political agenda. The risk is real: Europe may respond to its internal fragility by becoming more defensive, more transactional and more willing to externalise its problems onto African borders. That would deepen the old relationship rather than transform it — and it would be the opposite of a just transition and coherent governance.
But the central point remains. The most important effect of Europe’s protests is not immediate policy. It is the crack in legitimacy. Europe can no longer present itself as the stable, prosperous and morally superior tutor of Africa while its own students sleep in tents and its own farmers block the roads. That loss of aura is not a humiliation; it is an opportunity. In ESG terms, it is a governance failure and a loss of social capital that forces Europe to sit at the table differently — not as a tutor, but as a partner with problems of its own. And it gives African actors a stronger hand to demand reciprocity, respect and a real say in the terms of the relationship.
