On Friday 28 July, the European Commission announced that the green light has been given to release €46 million from the EU's emergency trust fund for Africa in order to help Libya strengthen the integrated management of its borders and migration.
Granting resources to finance this enhancement of Libya's capacities will enable part of the action plan adopted by the Commission on 4 July to be fulfilled – an action plan that is aimed at reducing migration flows along the central Mediterranean route and thus at lightening migration pressure on Italy (see EUROPE 11822).
This €46 million programme, which is co-financed by Italy, will be implemented along with the Italian ministry of the interior and will place great importance on monitoring and coordinating action.
It will aim to: - strengthen the operational capacities of the Libyan coastguard (supporting training, equipment, repair and maintenance of the existing fleet); - set up basic facilities in order to provide the Libyan coastguards with initial capacity to better organise their control operations; - conduct feasibility studies for two fully-fledged control facilities in Tripoli (this will involve the full design of an interagency national coordination centre under the control of the ministry of interior; a maritime rescue coordination centre under the control of the ministry of defence; and assistance to the authorities in defining and declaring a Libyan search and rescue region with adequate standard operation procedures); - strengthen the operational capacity of the Libyan border guards along the southern borders most affected by the illegal crossing of migrants.
The trust fund for Africa was launched in November 2015 at the special EU-Africa summit in Malta. It started with €1.8 billion from the European Commission to help certain African countries strengthen their capacities for tackling the deep-rooted causes of illegal migration (see EUROPE 11414).
Contributions from the EU member states currently only amount to €200 million, European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos deplored on Wednesday 26 July, when presenting the new aid measures for Italy to manage the migration flows in the central Mediterranean (see EUROPE 11837). "Contributions are starting to come in, but the member states need to take this seriously", he said. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)