Brussels, 17/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - EU expenditure to respond to the migration problems in the countries of the neighbourhood over the period 2007-2013 (and therefore prior to the current migrant prices) have been scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors, which on Thursday 17 March published a report on this theme, reaching the conclusion that this expenditure “(struggled) to find effectiveness”. The scope covered is the countries of the eastern and southern neighbourhood, more specifically Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Algeria, Libya and Morocco.
The Auditors reviewed 23 projects, presenting a contractual value of €89 million out of a total of €742 million. Their main observations, stated in this report, highlight a number of inadequacies affecting the expenditure, which the Court suggests should be corrected. The Court criticises the “complexity of the strategic and governance objectives, the fact that it is impossible to measure the results of this policy, the mixed successes on returns of migrants to the countries of origin and coordination problems between various bodies of the EU as well as between the European Commission and member states”. The auditors focused on expenditure made through the specific European financial instruments, but were unable to analyse all expenditure made, as the Commission does not have precise and compile data.
Although the “report does not cover events and EU actions, nor data, of 2015”, the publication still provides a useful opportunity to feed into the debate on the management of the current migration crisis, the Court argues. “We publish the results of this audit now, since we consider the findings and recommendations of this audit have relevance as the EU seeks to devise appropriate policy and budgetary responses to the external migration policy”, said Danièle Lamarque, the member of the Court who headed up the work on the report.
The report is available at:
http://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR16_09/SR_MIGRATION_EN.pdf (Fathi B'Chir)
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