Brussels, 08/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On the sidelines of the meeting of the European Commission and African Union (AU) Commission in Addis Ababa on Thursday 7 April, the chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said that Africa hopes the EU member states will show the political will to repatriate illegal flows of African capital held in certain European banks.
While the Panama Papers scandal is currently headline news across the world, the issue of illegal financial flows was not on the agenda of this 8th annual conference of the twin institutions held in the Ethiopian capital to advance the EU-Africa strategic partnership (see other article).
Questioned about how the EU was planning to help Africa recover these funds, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Zuma told press that the subject had “not been discussed”. Zuma nevertheless stated that the problem of illegal flows of African capital to Europe was not a new problem and was a source of concern long-debated by the two sides.
“We have been discussing the problem with the EU since 2000, since the first EU-Africa summit in Cairo. At that time, we had maybe not quantified the extent of the problem, and we had not carried out extensive studies, but we knew there were illicit financial funds in European banks (…). At that time we didn't get that kind of assistance [to repatriate the money to Africa]. But of course now it's another century - 2016. We hope that European countries who find that illicit funds are in their banks will find it morally and economically good to send the funds back”, Zuma stated.
She added that African countries should also discuss how these funds should be used. Ideas were not lacking, however, she said, mentioning the AU's Agenda 2063 and education for women, boys and girls as being among “many areas” in which the money could be used. “We hope that there will be political will from the Europeans to repatriate the funds”, she said. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)