# taz.de -- European migration policy in Africa: Moving Europe’s borders to A… | |
> Europe wants to “fight the root causes of migration“ by providing more | |
> aid to Africa. A cynical game: they are effectively paying for people to | |
> be detained. | |
Bild: A refugee rescued in the Mediteranean: the individual fate is of no inter… | |
Between 2010 and 2015, over 700,000 African asylum seekers entered EU | |
countries. Every year the numbers are increasing rapidly. Over the same | |
period, this figure has risen by 260 percent. In its most recent report on | |
migration flows to Europe, the International Organization for Migration | |
wrote that in 2016 “ the number of migrants from Syria, Iraq and | |
Afghanistan is decreased and the number of migrants from Africa […] | |
increased“. | |
The population of Africa is set to more than double by 2050. Germany’s | |
Development Minister, Christian democrat Gerd Müller, recently stated that | |
migration from Africa could “increase dramatically“. | |
At this week's EU summit, migration from the African continent was top of | |
the agenda. The EU wants to avoid another refugee crisis, such as the one | |
witnessed in 2015, at all costs, not least for the sake of the union’s | |
future and to counter pressure from right-wing populists. A repeat of 2015 | |
“cannot, should not and must not“ be allowed to happen, Merkel stated | |
recently at the conference of her Christian Democratic Union party. | |
When it comes to setting a new EU-Africa agenda, Germany is leading the | |
charge. This past October, Merkel returned to Africa for the first time | |
since 2011. Her trip was then followed by a stream of African heads of | |
states and delegations visiting Berlin. A similar scene played out in | |
Brussels. Not even the Ebola crisis generated this much interest in the | |
African continent. On 1 December, Germany assumed presidency of the G20 | |
group, declaring that one of the pillars of the federal government’s | |
programme would be: ‚Accepting responsibility – especially for Africa’. | |
The EU launched its new approach to EU-Africa relations at the height of | |
the Syrian refugee crisis. On 11 and 12 November 2015, the EU invited the | |
African Union (AU) to attend a migration summit in Valletta on the | |
Mediterranean island of Malta. There member states set up a €1.8-billion | |
‘EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa’. The Valletta Action Plan states that | |
the aim of this fund is to address “the root causes of destabilisation, | |
forced displacement and irregular migration“ by boosting economic growth | |
and development in Africa. | |
## Misleading funds | |
In Valletta, Africa’s governments pledged to undertake joint efforts “to | |
fight against irregular migration“. However, they rightly saw the | |
billion-euro trust fund as misleading: the lion’s share had long been | |
earmarked for development spending within the EU budget. And African | |
leaders weren’t too eager to comply with all of the EU’s wishes. | |
Remittances sent back to Africa by migrants in Europe are too crucial and | |
deportations unpopular among the electorate at home. | |
As such, very little happened initially. But six months later, the EU began | |
to tighten the screws on their African 'partners’. “All policies and | |
instruments at the EU’s disposal,“ the EU Commission stated in a paper | |
published on 7 June 2016, should be used “to achieve concrete results“ in | |
“managing migration“. | |
On the same day, social democrat EU Commission First Vice-President Frans | |
Timmermans, a Dutch politician, told the EU Parliament that the new Africa | |
policy would be a “mix of positive and negative incentives“. Third | |
countries that “effectively“ worked together with the EU would be | |
“rewarded“; there would be “consequences“ for those that didn’t, i.e.… | |
carrot and stick approach. For those who participated, the EU promised a | |
total sum of €8 billion by the end of the decade. Their goal: “to bring | |
order to migration flows“. | |
## Negative incentives | |
The EU's approach is twofold: firstly, decrease the number of migrants | |
arriving on the continent, and, secondly, subject those who do make it to | |
faster deportation. When the new policy was formally adopted on 28 June, | |
the European Council demanded “specific and measurable results in terms of | |
fast […] returns of irregular migrants“, a request it reiterated on 21 | |
October. If African partners did not deliver “concrete results […] in | |
managing migration better“, they would be ready to adapt “engagement and | |
financial aid“. | |
Those who don’t produce the desired outcomes are set to lose not only aid | |
payments but access to markets. The policy is referred to as creating and | |
applying “the necessary leverage, by using all relevant EU policies, | |
instruments and tools, including development and trade“. | |
One such instrument is the mobilisation of private investment. The EU plans | |
to set aside €3 billion from its development budget, a sum member states | |
are expected to match. This fund should enable European businesses to | |
invest an additional (and rather spectacular) €62 billion in Africa by 2020 | |
– at least in the countries that agree to help boost border security. Back | |
in June, Timmermans called it an “ambitious External Investment Plan [for | |
third countries] to help create opportunities and tackle the root causes of | |
migration“. This investment should help create jobs and keep people in | |
Africa. | |
„These are development funds that are now being re-diverted to promote | |
business,“ criticises Inge Brees from NGO CARE in Brussels. She says that | |
the EU does not check whether these projects actually aid development or | |
whether employees and human rights are respected. Most importantly, | |
however, this aid is concentrated in countries that are key for migration | |
control – and absent in nations that aren’t. “This money didn’t just ap… | |
out of nowhere,“ says Brees. “Otherwise they would have made funds | |
available to tackle other crises.“ | |
## EU-Turkey deal: the new model | |
The same is true of the Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), which has since grown | |
to €2.5 billion. This pot is also mainly composed of EU development budget | |
funds yet to be earmarked for spending. Now the Council plans to top it up. | |
Money in exchange for stopping refugees: this is the new policy approach | |
embodied by a billion-euro deal between the EU and Turkey. Brussels not | |
only seems happy to turn a blind eye to the fact that the majority of | |
Africans that migrate to Europe are fleeing regimes at home – it even goes | |
one step further: the EU not only offers support to democratic governments | |
but to dictatorships as well, all with the aim of stopping the streams of | |
refugees. | |
Taz calculates that between 2000 and 2015 the EU and its member states paid | |
at least €1.913 billion to African countries to stop refugees. This doesn’t | |
include Berlusconi and Gaddafi’s 2008 refugee deal whereby Italy promised | |
Libya €5 billion (even though only €250 million of this actually swapped | |
hands). | |
The actual sum is, in all likelihood, much higher: relevant agreements | |
almost never explicitly state that their aim is to prevent refugees. Most | |
of the time, a familiar pattern can be observed. Take the example of Spain | |
and Mali: in January 2007 Spain’s King Juan Carlos invited the president of | |
Mali Amadou Toumani Touré to lunch. Until that point, Spain had more or | |
less paid little attention to the Sahel state. But as more and more West | |
Africans began entering Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s African enclaves, as | |
well as the Canary Islands, via Mali, Touré agreed to sign two agreements, | |
which he did at the meeting’s close. The first promised Mali €103 million | |
in development aid by the end of 2011. In the second, Touré pledged to | |
“effectively co-operate“ to manage the country’s borders – and promised… | |
to hamper Spain’s attempts to deport Malians. | |
## Harmonised blackmail across the EU | |
That was how Spain’s government bought half of West Africa. And it was a | |
strategy that worked: in the years that followed, hardly any African | |
refugees managed to reach the Canary Islands. Other countries tried to | |
follow their lead. In 2007 the Netherlands cut roughly €10 million of | |
development aid for Ghana because the country’s government refused to | |
readmit deportees. | |
These were just one-off actions. Then, in 2010, the EU founded its External | |
Action Service (EEAS) creating countless Delegations, even in the isolated | |
dictatorship of Eritrea, the country that produces the highest number of | |
African refugees in Europe. The EU’s assured foreign policy chief Federica | |
Mogherini, who hails from the country most affected by African migration, | |
Italy, wants the EU to set out foreign policy as if it were a single state. | |
Migration control is one of her key objectives. | |
For months, the EU has been engaged in intense negotiations on 'compacts’ – | |
bespoke deals with individual countries. So far compacts have been arranged | |
with Lebanon and Jordan along with five “priority states“ in Africa: | |
Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Ethiopia. Exactly what these frameworks | |
entail is unclear. On 11 December it was reported that Dutch Foreign | |
Secretary Bert Koenders had signed a readmission agreement for rejected | |
asylum seekers from Mali with his Malian counterpart Abdoulaye Diop on | |
behalf of the EU. Mali would thus become the first state on the African | |
mainland to agree to such a deal with the European Union (previously the | |
only other African state to sign a similar agreement was Cape Verde). | |
Mali’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Abdoulaye Diop, quickly denied the | |
claim, stating that no readmission agreement had been signed and that any | |
reports to that effect were “lies“. He claimed the agreement only concerned | |
nine projects (totalling €145 million) that had been agreed for Mali as | |
part of a migration dialogue with the EU set to continue the following | |
September. Back in February, in a strategy paper marked 'confidential’, the | |
EU’s External Action Service noted that the Malian Government was “against | |
readmission agreements“. | |
## Negotiations at a price | |
Discussions concerning further agreements are currently ongoing with | |
Nigeria and Tunisia, as well as Ethiopia, Niger and Senegal. Whether | |
additional countries will be added to the list and under what conditions | |
remains to be seen. According to an internal paper written by the German | |
government in the run-up to this week’s EU summit, which taz has been able | |
to obtain, the EU’s External Action Service is of the opinion that “in any | |
case, the acquisition of further countries as partners must be accompanied | |
by the provision of additional funds“. However, it seems Berlin remains | |
sceptical. The government feels an approach that involves linking | |
assistance with money in this way is “too general“; instead, it would be | |
wise not to “put a price on negotiations with third countries“ before they | |
begin. | |
What matters first and foremost is what the EU wants to get out of these | |
African nations. In a strategy paper concerning Ethiopia released in March | |
2016, the EU demanded that the government in Addis Ababa reduce “secondary | |
movement from refugee camps in Ethiopia towards Europe“. In a paper | |
released by the Commission in February 2016, Nigeria, a hub for passport | |
counterfeiters, was instructed to take more comprehensive action against | |
smugglers and document forgers as well as to speed up the introduction of | |
biometric ID cards, which until that point had been sluggish. | |
When Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari visited Berlin in October 2016, | |
Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that “anyone who has not been granted the | |
right to remain in Germany – this affects 92 percent of arrivals in this | |
country from Nigeria – will have to return.“ | |
Deportations are always the most pressing issue. As far as Europe is | |
concerned, they don’t happen often enough. In 2014, 470,000 people were | |
issued with an order to leave the EU, but, over the same period, a mere | |
169,000 were deported. More recent figures are not available. | |
## Bypassing parliament | |
What is the reason for this substantial gap? The answer: most individuals | |
don’t hold passports. A lack of documentation is “still the most | |
significant issue in quantitative terms“ with regard to deportations. That | |
was the evaluation of the German federal/state working group on expulsion. | |
In such cases, immigration authorities have to establish the individual’s | |
nationality and obtain a passport from the relevant embassy, but the | |
embassies often don’t comply. | |
Previous bilateral readmission agreements signed with some African | |
countries have done little to resolve the issue. These new deals are set to | |
change the situation. In order to avoid the European Parliament, which | |
tends to be sensitive to human rights issues, slowing processes down, the | |
EU prefers to pursue informal agreements which do not require parliamentary | |
approval. | |
Of the 60 agreements regarding deportation that Germany, the UK, Italy, | |
France and Spain have signed with African countries, only eight are formal | |
readmission agreements. The rest comprise opaque arrangements, usually | |
between national police authorities, such as Italy’s memoranda with | |
Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Niger that have not even been | |
disclosed to the nation’s own parliament. | |
The EU aims to include a strategic weapon in its fight to boost | |
deportations as part of compact negotiations: the ‘laissez-passer’. These | |
permits are travel documents that are valid for a single deportation. The | |
trick? The passport isn’t issued by the suspected country of origin but by | |
the EU state that wishes to deport the individual in question. The EU first | |
‚recommended’ the laissez-passer in 1994, but until now hardly any African | |
nation has agreed to acknowledge them. The Commission now hopes to change | |
their minds. It is demanding that African states agree to allow the EU to | |
designate individuals’ nationalities and thus to surrender some of their | |
national sovereignty. | |
This carries its own risks for partners that agree to such terms. Refugees | |
in Europe whose applications have been rejected could easily find | |
themselves being declared citizens of a country that accepts | |
laissez-passers, irrespective of where they actually come from. At the end | |
of October, the European Parliament adopted a regulation which enables the | |
mandatory introduction of laissez-passers. It will enter into force on 8 | |
April 2017. | |
## Keep borders open but with more controls | |
This means the question of who belongs where is now tinged with | |
controversy. Throughout large parts of Africa, it has until now been | |
relatively easy for citizens to travel between neighbouring states. | |
‘African integration’ is a stated aim of all African governments and | |
regional organisations. Officially, the EU also supports this objective. | |
But its policies are having the exact opposite effect. Now an ever-tighter | |
web of control mechanisms is being created that is gradually restricting | |
freedom of movement on the continent. | |
The EU Commission states that it has absolutely no intention of closing | |
Africa’s internal borders; it simply wants them to be better policed, | |
adding that those who can provide identification will be allowed through. | |
But this is only half of the story. | |
There is a key trans-Sahara route that crosses the north east of Mali. West | |
Africans can move freely across the border to Niger. But Niger’s police | |
situated at the Yassan border post have recently been turning away an | |
increasing number of travellers. “This affects citizens of Mali and, to a | |
much greater extent, individuals from other West African countries,“ says | |
Éric Alain Kamden, who has been working on the ground for NGO Caritas since | |
2009. For those from countries such as Ghana, Sierra Leone or the Ivory | |
Coast, it is assumed that Europe is their ultimate destination. According | |
to an inspector in Yassan, guards are instructed not to grant these | |
individuals passage. There are reports of similar practices along other | |
borders in the region. Thus traditional migration routes in West Africa, | |
which are crucial to the region, are being restricted. | |
## Trying not to give the wrong impression | |
So what might a well-designed migration corridor from West Africa to Europe | |
look like? In 2008 the former EU development commissioner Louis Michel | |
tried to implement a plan to create the ideal migration set-up. He opened | |
an EU job centre in Mali’s capital, Bamako. There Malians in search of work | |
were able to apply directly for job openings in Europe. If they were | |
successful, a visa would be granted. The project was a spectacular failure. | |
The EU itself is not allowed to issue work visas – and member states had no | |
desire to. | |
The situation remains unchanged to this day. Even though all the papers | |
published on the new Africa partnership speak of “creating legal routes“, | |
the 'compacts’ contain little to no mention of them. The drafts once | |
included references to “more places for students, researchers and | |
lecturers“ in “Erasmus+“ scholarship schemes. This is no longer the case. | |
The European Council wants to avoid anything that may give the impression | |
that countries want more migration. Anyone wishing to work in Europe must | |
now almost certainly face the prospect of having to take the perilous | |
journey across the sea and then pretend to be an asylum seeker upon | |
arrival. | |
If they even get that far, that is. The simplest way to keep refugees and | |
migrants in Africa is to fence them in. According to the Geneva-based | |
Global Detention Project, there are currently 33 migrant detention | |
facilities in Libya, 16 in Morocco, five in Senegal, two in Tunisia and one | |
in Mauritania (the last of which was built by Spain). | |
## Torture and forced labour | |
According to a report issued jointly by the UN Human Rights Commission and | |
the UN Mission in Libya in mid-December, “severe overcrowding, lack of | |
light and very little ventilation“ are commonplace in many of Libya’s | |
camps. The report also highlighted the frequent lack of sanitation | |
facilities, claiming that diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses were | |
widespread and that there was a lack of water, food and medical care. | |
“We black-skinned Africans, we are called animals and we are treated as | |
animals,“ a 16-year-old Eritrean boy, who in the summer of 2016 spent six | |
weeks in a windowless metal hangar with around 200 others in the Libyan | |
capital of Tripoli, told UN investigators. Others spoke of torture, forced | |
labour and sexual violence. | |
Ransom demands are constantly on the rise, Meron Estefanos, Director of the | |
Eritrean Initiative on Refugee Rights, an NGO run by the Eritrean exile | |
community in Sweden, explains. Kidnappers can demand up to $15,000 per | |
person from the individuals’ families. Payments are made by mobile | |
transfer. | |
This practice of detaining migrants was first used during the period of the | |
Berlusconi/Gaddafi deal. When the Libyan leader was toppled in 2011, | |
militia took over the prisons. According to a UN report, the responsible | |
department at the Libyan interior ministry currently runs 24 detention | |
centres with between 4,000 and 7,000 detainees. The report states that | |
further camps run by other authorities and militia also exist. According to | |
the EU’s estimates, an astonishing seven percent of the over one million | |
migrants and refugees in Libya are being held in camps. This equates to | |
roughly 77,000 people. At present, the EU is trying to ascertain which | |
camps can be upgraded to be in line with EU standards. | |
## The horrors of migrant prison | |
Egypt, a country that Germany has prioritised as a key EU partner in its | |
new approach to migration, has a stunning 64 migrant jails in operation. At | |
the same time, it is also a partner in the 'Better Migration Management’ | |
project organised by German development agency GiZ (German Agency for | |
International Cooperation). The aim of the project is to advise border | |
police on “applying practices that respect human rights“. Apparently, GiZ | |
is unable to put pressure on Egypt to force the country’s military to close | |
its refugee jails. | |
However, that didn’t stop GiZ from proudly stating that it had refused a | |
request for military equipment and the construction of detention cells made | |
by Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a man currently under an | |
international arrest warrant for his involvement in suspected genocide in | |
Sudan’s western Darfur region. Otherwise, the EU seems to have no qualms | |
about co-operating with Bashir. It is contemplating cancelling all of the | |
country’s debt, is willing to lobby the US government to drop Sudan from | |
its terror list and will ask the WTO to consider a fresh round of talks. | |
Sudan isn’t the only dictatorship the EU has become involved with for the | |
purpose of migration control. Ethiopia, a country where hundreds of people | |
have been killed this past year by forces quashing protests, was promised | |
110 million euros worth of projects in the first (and recently completed) | |
round of allocations from the EU Trust Fund for Africa. | |
Eritrea, one of the world’s worst dictatorships, may not be Germany’s | |
development partner like Ethiopia, but it is still able to benefit from the | |
'Better Migration Management’ Programme. According to GiZ, the training of | |
Eritrean officials may not be allowed in Eritrea, but they are being | |
trained in neighbouring countries. The head of the EU delegation to | |
Eritrea, Christian Manahl, told taz that training may at some point be | |
carried out in Eritrea. The option hadn’t been ruled out. | |
15 Dec 2016 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Christian Jakob | |
## TAGS | |
migControl | |
Schwerpunkt Flucht | |
EU | |
Entwicklungshilfe | |
Lesestück Recherche und Reportage | |
migControl | |
migControl | |
MigrationControl | |
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA | |
Europas Grenzen in Afrika: Über den Zaun hinaus | |
Die EU baut Frontex zu einer Full-Service-Agentur um. Dabei arbeitet sie | |
mit zwielichtigen Regierungen zusammen. | |
EU-Migrationspolitik in Afrika: Zwischen Hilfe und Bevormundung | |
Drei Städte stehen für EU-Migrationspolitik in Afrika, Rabat, Karthum und | |
Valetta. Dort wurde über Geld und Gegenleistung verhandelt. | |
Kommentar Fluchtgründe in Afrika: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt | |
Unser Autor stammt aus Äthiopien. Seit Jahren lebt er im Exil. Er glaubt, | |
dass die Repression Menschen außer Landes treibt. | |
ECOWAS-Beamter über EU und Migration: „Man kriminalisiert Migration“ | |
Die westafrikanische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft bleibt bei Verhandlungen | |
zwischen EU und regionalen Staaten zur Migrationskontrolle außen vor, | |
beklagt Sanoh N’Fally. |