# taz.de -- EU-funds for African states: Curbing Migration at any cost | |
> Billions flow to Africa, to stop people from coming to Europe. How much | |
> does the EU exactly pay for the border service? | |
Bild: Role models for a new kind of deal: Gaddafi and Berlusconi in 2004 | |
At least EUR 2,934 million – that is how much European states and the EU | |
have paid or granted to governments in Africa since the beginning of the | |
millennium to taz calculations to combat irregular migration. In addition, | |
there will be between € 3 billion and € 6 billion, which will flow to | |
Turkey from 2016, as well as another € 7 billion which the EU has promised | |
Africa by 2020. | |
The goal is always the same: the states should hold or withdraw refugees in | |
the country. It is a difficult task to calculate the amount of funds spent | |
on this. Obviously, there is never a „refugee stop“ on the transfer funds. | |
In any case mostly not. | |
Such efforts have existed since the beginning of the last decade, mainly | |
for the countries with EU external borders: Italy and Spain. DG RELEX, the | |
then weak EU Directorate-General for Foreign Affairs, hardly appeared. In | |
2010, however, the EU established its „Foreign Service“. She opened message | |
around message, today the self-confident Foreign Minister Federica | |
Mogherini wants to make foreign policy as if the EU itself was a state. | |
Migrational control is one of the most important projects – any success it | |
can achieve is only too welcome in the European capitals and melts the | |
skepticism of Brussels' foreign policy ambitions. | |
Whether they come from Brussels, Rome or Madrid – roughly three types of | |
payments are used to control migration. | |
## Spain's Plan Africa | |
On the one hand, there are those who fall into the area of classical | |
development aid. This can be projects for the modernization of the | |
administration, for the development of a port, education or health | |
infrastructure – nothing to do with border protection. But these can be | |
linked to the condition that refugees are stopped or withdrawn.The most | |
important example was the Spanish „Plan Africa (I + II)“ program from 2004. | |
Between 2004 and 2008, Spain nearly quadrupled its relief money in West | |
Africa. The „Official Development Assistance“, the development aid, rose by | |
529 per cent in the West African area important for transit migration. | |
For example, Morocco received a total of 430.2 million euros in development | |
aid from Madrid, Algeria 165.3 million euros, Mali 103.3 million, Cape | |
Verde 67.7 million, Gambia 12.7 million. At the beginning of the crisis, | |
donations gradually declined. All countries had previously had to commit | |
themselves to intensifying their border protection (for further details, | |
see the country reports Spain, Senegal, Mali and Mauritania). | |
## Border posts | |
Then there are payments that are made directly for infrastructure to build | |
up borders. Federal Ministry of Defense and the Federal Foreign Office, for | |
example, provided money for the „upgrading“ of states in Africa in 2016. | |
Tunisia received 20 million euros, including electronic surveillance on the | |
border with Libya and the training of the border police. In 2017 there will | |
be a further 40 million for Tunisia. | |
German national police officers form Tunisian border guards, the Bundeswehr | |
sends speedboats and armored trucks. 2017, Germany plans to provide mobile | |
monitoring systems with ground reconnaissance systems. Five night | |
surveillance systems, 25 thermal imaging cameras, 25 optical sensors and | |
five radar systems have already been delivered to Tunisia. The country gets | |
a high-tech border practically free (for further details see the country | |
report Germany and Tunisia). | |
Italy had already attempted similar efforts in Tunisia starting in 1999, | |
with technical assistance for the border police, initially worth a modest | |
20 million euros. But it did not stop. The transfer to Tunis became bigger, | |
in 2008 the new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi concluded the „friendship, | |
partnership and cooperation agreement“ with Gaddafi's Libya. For years, | |
Libya had invoked billions of reparations for Italy's colonial crimes. | |
Italy now met Gaddafi far and said the construction as well as financing a | |
coastal highway from the east to the western border of Libya. For over 20 | |
years, 250 million dollars of Libya should flow annually. 2009 and 2010 the | |
sum could have flowed – then came the revolution. | |
Finally, there are payments for refugees and migrants to stay where they | |
are. The best example of this is the billions for Turkey. However, this | |
also includes the EU Trust Fund for Africa, which is equipped with around | |
2.4 billion euros. In November 2015 the EU had already adopted an action | |
plan for cooperation in the refugee crisis at a summit with African states. | |
At the same time, coping with the refugee crisis has become the official | |
target of EU development assistance (see the EU Report on the EU). | |
## Private investment | |
The planned stimulation of private investment in Africa by the Africa | |
Investment Facility will have a similar effect. The European Investment | |
Fund (EFSI) by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is exemplary. In | |
mid-November, the EU declared that it had invested EUR 154 billion in | |
Europe in just one year by means of cheap, publicly secured EFSI loans – 20 | |
times more than the EU itself had put into the recovery plan. | |
This is also the case in Africa: the EU wants to devote three billion euros | |
to its development budget, and the member states should do the same. | |
European companies are to invest an impressive 62 billion euros in Africa | |
by 2020, at least in countries bordering on the border. This, according to | |
the hope, will create jobs that ultimately hold the young people in Africa | |
(for more details, see the country report on the EU). | |
15 Dec 2016 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Christian Jakob | |
## TAGS | |
migControl | |
EU-Afrika-Gipfel | |
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA | |
Strategien gegen Migration: Die Wiederentdeckung Afrikas | |
Mehrere Gipfeltreffen wollen Afrikas Märkte öffnen und Grenzen schließen. | |
Der Kontinent soll unseren Wünschen gehorchen. |