The principal purpose of the EU emergency trust fund for Africa, financed by development aid resources, is to support sustainable economic and social progress in recipient countries, with the involvement of civil society, and not to staunch the flows of migrants and asylum seekers, MEPs stressed in Strasbourg on Tuesday 13 September.
They gave their backing to Ignazio Corrao (EFDD, Italy), rapporteur on the development and humanitarian aid implications of this “emergency trust fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa”, that was launched at the extraordinary EU-Africa summit in Valletta in November of last year (see EUROPE 11578).
The non-binding resolution they adopted by the comfortable majority of 511 votes to 129, with 61 abstentions, regrets that the member states do not even meet their financial commitments. Their combined contributions (€81.71 million in April 2016) do not equate to 5% of the EU’s contribution, funded principally from European development fund reserves (€1 billion) and, to a lesser extent from the resources of the EU budget (€125 million from the development cooperation instrument, €50 million from the humanitarian aid instrument and €200 million from the European neighbourhood instrument.
Parliament, therefore, urges the member states to live up to their commitments on both the trust fund (to contribute, with other donors, to the €1.8 billion to match the EU contribution) and official development aid (0.7% of GDP).
MEPs state that use of the European development fund can be harmful to the least developed African countries which are not eligible for aid from the emergency fund, this being devoted to the countries of the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin.
Having no democratic control over expenditure from the ad hoc fund and delivering a reminder that it was not involved in setting the fund up, Parliament calls on the Commission to enhance transparency and systematically monitor how the money is spent. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)