https://euobserver.com/migration/134067
EU to use aid and trade to stop Africa migration
Some 64,000 people crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa to
Italy this year (Photo: iom.int)
By Nikolaj Nielsen
BRUSSELS, 28. Jun, 09:29
EU leaders are likely to agree to use all means possible to keep
irregular migrants from leaving Africa to reach Europe when they meet
at a summit in Brussels later, according to leaked papers seen by this
website.
The heads of state are set to back a master plan to use development
aid and trade as leverage against so-called countries of origin in
Africa.
Most of the people disembarking from Libya to reach Italy by boat come
from Nigeria, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and
Egypt. Few are Syrians and most are said to be economic migrants.
The renewed emphasis on Africa follows border closures in the Western
Balkans and a March deal with Turkey that has resulted in a sharp
reduction of people entering Greece.
Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel pushed the EU-Turkey deal after
some 1 million sought asylum last year in her country.
Around 64,000 people have since reached Italy from the North African
coast this year. And almost 3,000 have died in the attempt.
A senior EU official said the hope is to find similar leadership with Africa.
"We need 'Merkels', leaders who add their own leverage to the EU
leverage, like Merkel did with Turkey," said the official.
'Small piece of the puzzle'
Leaked draft conclusions from the summit, seen by this website,
suggest EU states are prepared to do whatever is necessary.
The draft says the EU will "create and apply the necessary leverage"
to slow the flows from Africa.
This includes using "all relevant EU policies, instruments and tools,
including development and trade".
The same document also wants to speed up returns.
Those caught in the EU without the right for international protection
will be sent home even if there are no readmission agreements, formal
arrangements that allow for the returns.
The draft notes the need to apply "temporary arrangements" until such
agreements are formalised and applied in full.
But such moves are likely to upset African states. EU leaders and
African heads of state had already clashed on the issue last November
at the Valletta summit in Malta.
The EU at time wanted, among other things, a so-called EU travel
document to speed up returns of unwanted migrants who have no ID cards
or passports.
African nations baulked at the plan in Valletta but the EU is moving
ahead with the idea anyway. MEPs in the EU parliament's civil
liberties committee in May backed the travel document proposal.
"It is one small piece in the puzzle and one step in the right
direction," said at the time the MEP in charge of the file, Finnish
conservative Jussi Halla-aho.
The plan now is to focus the so-called countries of origin in Africa
but also transit countries like pariah state Sudan.
Problems with Sudan
Sudan's ministry of interior has requested the EU help fund border
infrastructure at 17 crossing points.
This includes computers, scanners, servers, cars and aircraft. It also
wants two reception centres in Gadaref and Kassala, with so-called
"custody rooms".
Sudan deported at least 442 Eritreans, including six registered
refugees, to Eritrea in May, a month after the EU commission had
announced €100 million development aid package for Sudan.
EU development commissioner Neven Mimica made the announcement
following his visit to the country, whose president Omar al-Bashir is
wanted for genocide.
Mimica didn't meet Bashir but he did hold meetings with the Sudan's
interior ministry, among others in the government.
The commission says funding won't go to the Sudan government.
External investment fund
Part of the package on Tuesday includes a proposal, to be presented in
September, for a new external investment fund.
An EU source told EUobserver that the idea behind the investment fund
is "to create better conditions in these countries so that less people
would leave".
The fund will pool private and public funds together to help build
things like big infrastructure projects.
It's part of a larger idea announced earlier this month by the EU
commission to shore up money and bilateral relations with African
states.
The commission said some €3.1 billion will be mobilised for its
so-called partnership framework. The money is then expected to trigger
total investments of up to €31 billion and possibly €62 billion.
European Investment Bank (EIB) chief Werner Hoyer, for his part, will
on Tuesday brief the heads of the state on separate but linked
proposal to the external fund.
But an EU source said it was unlikely there would be clear commitments
made by EU heads of state to the EIB plan and the external fund.
"Don't expect any clear commitments to this but those will be
mentioned," he noted.
Received on Tue Jun 28 2016 - 21:09:04 EDT