After expanding domestic control over mining to pursue economic sovereignty, Burkina Faso has moved up the value chain with its first gold refinery, inaugurated by its president, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, on September 28.

Most of the gold mined in the country was previously exported as unrefined dore to be processed abroad. Now, it will be processed, tested for purity, and certified domestically at the Raffinerie Nationale d’Or du Burkina Faso, built at a cost of USD 19 million on more than 12 acres in the capital, Ouagadougou.​

“From now on, gold … must not only be extracted in Burkina Faso, it must be processed, controlled, valued and certified in Burkina Faso,” Traoré said, inaugurating the new facility.​

Inviting the country’s youth “to learn to master the whole value chain,” he added, “Natural resources belong to the people. They must contribute to improve their living conditions.”​

In the struggle for sovereignty​

Burkina Faso has long been one of Africa’s largest gold producers. However, proceeds from its extraction were historically siphoned out of the country by foreign companies owning its mines. Burkinabe ownership was limited to only one mine, which a former mines minister owned privately.​

The state-owned mining company, Société de Participation Minière du Burkina Faso (SOPAMIB), served only as a dormant holder of 10% stakes in Burkina Faso’s foreign-owned mines.​

Changes began in 2022 with the ouster of then-president Roch Kaboré in a popularly supported military coup amid mass protests against the Burkinabe state’s subjugation to French neocolonialism.​

Subsequently, in 2023, Traoré’s transitional military government (backed by the trade unions, the anti-France protest movement, and wide sections of the civil society) consolidated mass support by expelling French troops from the country, asserting Burkina Faso’s sovereignty.​

Recognizing that control over its own economy and natural resources is a central pillar of sovereignty, his government launched sweeping reforms to the mining sector in mid-2024.

It revived the dormant SOPAMIB and began transferring foreign-owned mines to the state-owned mining company, nationalizing five key gold mining assets within a year.​

Following the nationalization of yet another gold mine later in September 2025, six of the country’s 15 industrial mines, accounting for 40% of the national mining operations, are domestically owned – three by the state, and three by Burkinabe private companies.​​

In the remaining foreign-owned mines, the reforms raised SOPAMIB’s free stake from 10% to 15%. It also enabled the state to buy an additional paid stake of 30%, either entirely through SOPAMIB or in partnership with domestic private investors, potentially raising the Burkinabe stake in foreign companies to 45%.​

Mining revenues finance national development

As state revenues grew from its expanded ownership, the government undertook major infrastructural projects. In 2025, it laid 500 kilometers of low-voltage lines and 165 kilometers of transmission lines, connecting almost 160,000 new households to the national grid and electrifying 131 rural localities.

​Its National Development Plan (NDP) for 2026–2030 is one of the largest economic programs ever rolled out in the Sahel. It is a 64-billion-dollar plan, two-thirds of which is to be funded domestically from state revenues generated and citizen shareholding programs.

​Read more: Burkina Faso launches Five-Year plan

​Further inspiring confidence in the viability of its five-year plan, the government expanded the 2026 annual budget by 7.58% mid-year, having already collected almost 57.5% of the projected annual revenue. This has boosted infrastructural spending without increasing the budget deficit.

​The government has also used its rising revenues to improve its fiscal position. Cashing in on the rally in gold prices in 2025, the government repaid USD 2.13 billion in domestic debt last year. To systematize the use of additional revenue generated from the cyclical movement of mineral prices, it established the Burkina Faso Sovereign Mining Investment Fund (FSMIB) in May 2026.​

Read more: Burkina Faso asserts financial independence from the West with mineral-backed sovereign fund​

Financed by surpluses generated when international mineral prices rise above the state-set benchmark, the FSMIB is not for easing short-term budgetary pressures. It is ring-fenced for long-term strategic infrastructural and industrial projects to reduce the need for external funding, on which such projects have historically depended.​

The mining reforms have not only reorganized the distribution of mining proceeds away from foreign extraction toward national economic development, but have also helped to massively increase production itself.  The 94-ton annual output in 2025 is the highest ever recorded in Burkina Faso – a nearly 47% increase from the 64 tons in 2024.​

Formalization of artisanal mining – a game changer​

Critical for this rise was the formalization of artisanal mining. In the absence of state procurement infrastructure, artisanal miners have historically sold the gold they mined to smugglers who paid the international spot price in cash. Tons of gold were thus extracted from Burkina Faso every year with no paper trail, no taxes, and no yield to the national economy, beyond sustaining the meager livelihoods of the artisanal miners.​​

A meager quarter to less than half a ton of the gold extracted by artisanal mining annually entered the official channels overseen by the National Agency for the Supervision of Artisanal and Semi-Mechanized Mining Operations (ANEEMAS). [See: years].

​In October 2023, the government reorganized ANEEMAS into the National Society of Precious Substances (SONASP), tasking it with developing infrastructure to procure metals from artisanal miners. The annual official artisanal production rose in 2024 to 7.13 tons, a 15-fold growth over the previous year.

​When the annual gold production in 2025 reached a historic high of 94 tons, roughly 42 of those came from artisanal miners. Rising from just over seven a year ago, artisanal production was nearing the industrial mines’ output of about 52 tons by 2025, as SONASP’s procurement infrastructure expanded.

​To further help SONASP expand coverage in a concentrated manner, the government established nine new cooperatives of artisanal miners in the first half of 2026. It also delineated four mining corridors exclusively for artisanal miners, de-escalating the historic conflict between artisanal and industrial miners.

​With this state support structure in place, artisanal miners had already supplied 29 tons to SONASP this year by June 30, exceeding the 26 tons produced by industrial mines in the first half of this year. In this period, the government completed the construction of four new power plants, adding 126.4 megawatts of generating capacity to the national grid.

​Due in part to the improved power supply, the industrial mining output rose in the first half of this year by 7.25% over the first half of 2025. Official artisanal output grew by 45%.

​“We want to master everything to the last detail”​

“Comrades, producing in quantity is no longer enough. Extracting is no longer enough. Exporting our resources is no longer enough,” Mines Minister Yacouba Zabré Gouba said on September 28 at the inauguration of the country’s first gold refinery with an initial annual capacity of 164 tons.​

“The revolution we have engaged in requires that each national resource be used by the nation,” processing it across all stages of the value chain. “Our gold will no longer be used” by foreign companies “to create added value” while “our people remain in need,” he added.

​”We start with gold,” said Traoré. But there are “many other metals … in our subsurface that we want to extract,” including manganese, copper and zinc. “We want to master everything to the last detail.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called a general election for 29 November, bringing Spain to the polls months ahead of schedule after his minority government suffered a major parliamentary defeat over measures intended to tackle the country’s housing crisis.

Sánchez announced the dissolution of parliament on Monday, ending months of speculation over whether his increasingly difficult parliamentary position could force an election before the current legislature was due to expire in 2027.

In an institutional statement announcing the election, Sánchez acknowledged that his government had “made mistakes” and had not achieved everything it had set out to do.

He said problems remained particularly acute in inequality, public services and access to housing, arguing that further reforms required a larger parliamentary majority.

“To do more, we need to renew and expand people’s support,” Sánchez said. He called for a “much broader, progressive majority” capable of carrying the government’s programme through parliament.

The election will take place on Sunday, 29 November, rather than in 2027, when the current parliamentary term was due to end. Sánchez informed King Felipe VI before convening an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers to dissolve the Cortes Generales.

Housing defeat brings crisis to a head

The immediate political backdrop to the decision was Friday’s rejection of two emergency housing decrees by the Congress of Deputies.

The government had approved the two decrees on 29 September in an attempt to address growing anger over rents and access to affordable housing.

The first contained measures to protect vulnerable households from eviction, increase the supply of affordable homes and restrict some forms of speculative property investment. It also proposed changes affecting tourist accommodation and purchases by investment funds.

The second concentrated on residential rental contracts, including provisions intended to prevent tenants from suddenly being forced into substantially more expensive agreements when existing leases expired.

Both measures were defeated. The first received 172 votes in favour and 178 against. The second was rejected by 184 votes to 166. The votes again demonstrated the difficulty facing a government whose survival has depended on agreements with several regional and nationalist parties.

Housing has developed into one of Spain’s most contentious domestic political issues as rents and property prices have increased sharply in Madrid, Barcelona and other major cities and tourist areas.

The dispute intensified following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the Madrid home where she had lived for more than 70 years.

Abascal was removed from the property on 23 September following a dispute over the rent. Her previous monthly payment had been €500, while the owners initially sought €2,650 before reducing the demand to €1,650 — still above her pension income.

Images of the elderly woman being taken from the building on a stretcher prompted widespread public anger and helped turn her case into a symbol of Spain’s housing crisis.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators subsequently took to the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities demanding stronger protection for tenants and measures to curb rising housing costs.

Sánchez’s fragile parliamentary majority

The housing vote exposed once again the central weakness of the government formed after Spain’s inconclusive 2023 election.

The conservative People’s Party (PP) won the largest number of seats, but its leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo was unable to assemble a parliamentary majority.

Sánchez remained prime minister after securing support from Sumar and reaching agreements with Catalan and Basque parties. The arrangement allowed him to form another government but left individual pieces of legislation dependent on negotiations with parties whose positions frequently diverge.

The latest housing measures were opposed by the PP and Vox, while Catalan party Junts also voted against them.

The PP has argued that greater intervention in the rental market risks reducing the number of properties available by discouraging owners from renting them. Its housing policy has instead placed greater emphasis on increasing supply.

Sánchez’s government argues that intervention is necessary because housing costs have increasingly become disconnected from household incomes in the areas experiencing the greatest pressure.

The issue has also become increasingly relevant at European level. Housing affordability has moved higher up the EU political agenda as governments confront shortages in major cities, rising construction costs and the impact of short-term tourist accommodation.

EU Today has previously reported on the growing pressure on European governments to address housing affordability, an issue that is increasingly intersecting with debates over migration, tourism, urban development and the cost of living.

Eight years in power

Sánchez has served as prime minister since June 2018, when he replaced Mariano Rajoy after winning a parliamentary vote of no confidence.

His latest term has been complicated not only by parliamentary arithmetic but by investigations and corruption cases involving people connected with the Socialist Party, as well as disputes over migration and household costs.

The government has nevertheless pointed to Spain’s economic performance and employment figures as evidence that its policies are working. In his election announcement, Sánchez described Spain as the EU economy recording the strongest growth and employment creation.

Spain has also remained an important participant in wider European debates over Ukraine, defence expenditure and the future direction of the European Union, while Sánchez has frequently differed with some European partners over the pace of increases in military spending.

The coming campaign is therefore unlikely to remain centred solely on housing.

PP sees opportunity

Feijóo enters the campaign with the PP expected to emerge as the largest individual party according to most recent polling, but the question of whether it could govern will depend heavily on the performance of Vox.

A PP victory without an outright majority could leave Feijóo dependent on Vox to form a government, making the balance between the two parties one of the central questions of the campaign.

Sánchez, meanwhile, will attempt to rebuild the coalition of left-wing and regional voters that allowed him to remain in office after the 2023 election.

His decision effectively turns the parliamentary confrontation over housing into a national vote on his eight years in power.

“The time has come,” Sánchez said in Monday’s address, “for the Spanish people to decide what future you want for yourselves and for your country.”

Spain will now enter a compressed election campaign in which housing, the cost of living, migration, corruption allegations and the future composition of the government are likely to dominate.

The formal election process begins with the dissolution of parliament, with voters going to the polls on 29 November.

 The insights of Freud (and many others) revealed truths about our inner lives that, while not as ironclad as thermodynamics or as practically useful as germ theory, were arrived at with enough rigor for psychology to consider itself a science alongside others. Psychology told compelling stories, such as the idea that moral obligations are at... Continue Reading

There is another side to loneliness. The loneliness itself may be doing good work in you. It is not good for man to be alone, and that desire for connection, for brotherhood, for a wife and children, for a household of your own, can push a man to go farther, do different things, and challenge... Continue Reading

The one-flesh union of marriage includes the vulnerability of being physically seen and known. Nakedness in marriage is intended to be free from shame, yet many wives experience shame after sexual betrayal—comparison, fear of rejection, and memories of your sin can make intimacy feel dangerously exposing rather than safe. If your wife’s sense of shame... Continue Reading

Adultery is listed and condemned directly in line with bestiality, homosexuality, incest, and other grossly immoral, deeply wicked sexual practices that pagan, godless people engaged in, so much so that the Lord spewed or vomited them out from the promised land that He then gave to His people (Lev. 20:23). To commit adultery, then, was... Continue Reading

A decade ago, Partridge was a lifestyle blogger and social justice evangelical entrepreneur who had been “saved from success.” In 2015, he gave a TEDx talk called “How to Value People over Profits” based on his book of the same title. His most controversial view was that yoga pants are sinful.  In recent years, Partridge, who has more... Continue Reading

When you create an AI model to exploit vulnerabilities in an environment, guess what happens? It finds vulnerabilities in an environment. The issue seems to be that Anthropic didn’t think through all the implications of their testing and things got away from them. In other words, it was human error that was the proximate cause... Continue Reading