In a new report published on Wednesday 25 September, the European Court of Auditors found that the EU’s €5 billion Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) for Africa, which will cease operations in 2025, is “not sufficiently focused on the priorities of addressing the root causes of instability, irregular migration and displacement on the African continent”. And the Commission was unable to learn any lessons from this.
The auditors had already called in 2018 for EUTF support to be better targeted (see EUROPE 12153/14). But “money specifically earmarked for migration issues continues to be dispersed on the ground to fund too wide a range of actions in the fields of development, humanitarian aid and security”, they said in a statement.
The Court, which took a closer look at the situation in Ethiopia, Gambia, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia, also found the communication on the results to be imprecise and observed “risks for human rights”, while recent newspaper investigations have again highlighted the abuses of the agreement signed between the EU and Tunisia in 2023 to prevent migrants from leaving for the EU. EU funds are suspected of covering up the mistreatment of migrants in the country, and the Europeans are apparently well aware of this.
The Court of Auditors explains that there are “no formal procedures for reporting and assessing alleged human rights violations”.
The Commission believes that contractual clauses that allow an activity to be suspended in the event of an EU decision help to provide adequate safeguards to mitigate the risks of non-compliance with the ‘do-no-harm’ principle which states that development cooperation should not cause unacceptable harm or human rights violation.
“However, we found no clear or documented examples, nor practical guidance, on what actions may trigger an EU decision to suspend an activity”, says the report.
“The Commission has stated that it would suspend support in the event of a direct link between EU spending and an allegation of human rights violations, based on an individual assessment of necessity and proportionality, also taking into account the country context. Despite the existence of allegations of such violations, the Commission could not provide examples of any such formal assessments being made in connection with EUTF activities” in Africa.
The Commission has “described to us examples of situations that would result in the suspension of certain activities in Libya. While we found clear indications that one of these situations had occurred, the Commission has so far not suspended any EUTF activities in Libya, considering that support must continue to preserve life and alleviate migrants’ suffering”.
The Court also considers that the proposed activities of the EUTF for Africa do not sufficiently address urgent needs, noting the low number of reports submitted on time on the needs identified and funded by the EUTF.
“Shared and open access to all reports and other evidence-based information, such as field studies (hydrological, topographical or environmental), would increase the success rate of projects” writes the Court.
One of the projects studied “drew on an existing advanced hydrological study from another EUTF project to drill successfully for water in Ethiopia. The same project funded similar work in Kenya using conventional and less reliable methods. Consequently, two boreholes drilled in Kenya were unsuccessful”.
The rules of the EUTF have enabled funding decisions to be taken quickly, but little account has been taken of the lessons learnt and the fund’s achievements have often been overestimated, summarises the Court. The European Commission therefore “is still unable to identify and report on the most efficient and effective approaches to reducing irregular migration and forced displacements in Africa”.
Created in 2015, the EUTF focuses on three regions: the Sahel and Lake Chad, the Horn of Africa and North Africa. The bulk of these contributions (€4.4 billion, or 88% of the total) came from the European Development Fund (EDF) and the EU budget.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/dkc (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)