EU running out of money to stop migrants travelling from Africa
UK - The EU is running out of money to pay African countries to take action to stop would-be migrants travelling to Europe, diplomats have warned.
European Union leaders set up a fund in 2015 to pay for border security and other measures aimed at preventing African citizens leaving their countries of origin. At an EU summit in Brussels this week, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned leaders of a looming 225m euro gap to pay for migration projects, including border-control in Libya, the departure point for most migrants who risk the perilous crossing over the central Mediterranean to Italy. “We are reaching our limits when it comes to this emergency trust fund for Africa,” Juncker told reporters after the summit. “We have to increase the financial means which we have to have at our disposal.” Germany and Sweden were among the countries that pledged to top up the fund during the summit discussion. Officials had warned that without an emergency injection of cash, EU-funded border control projects in Libya would be in doubt. The plea from the European commission points points to a bigger question about how to pay for the next tranche of EU migration funds for Africa. EU leaders created the EU-Africa trust fund in 2015 at the height of the migration crisis: by 2018 about 3.1bn euro is expected to have been released, with 1.9bn euro already disbursed. One EU diplomat said the EU-Africa trust fund was running out of money: “If the situation is not fixed rather quickly we might see ourselves in a situation where we are not able to finance these policies.” Spread between 26 countries, the EU-Africa trust fund pays for voluntary return of migrants stranded in north Africa, border security, skills and education projects.
(Theguardian.com)