How EU funds paid for risky African aid projects

Good morning.

Today, Laura reports on a damning assessment that EU aid to Africa has both failed to achieve its objectives and may have enabled human rights abuses. And Belgium’s energy minister bemoans her lack of government.

Cruel waste of money

Auditors have found that the EU’s flagship fund to tackle irregular migration from Africa has failed to achieve its goal, and that Brussels has ignored allegations of human rights breaches in the process, writes Laura Dubois.

Context: The EU launched its trust fund for Africa (EUTF) in 2015, when immigration numbers to Europe were rising steeply. The EUTF has to date funded projects worth more than €5bn in 27 African countries, aiming to tackle the “root causes” of migration, displacement and instability.

In a report published yesterday, the European Court of Auditors found that almost a decade after the fund was set up, it was still unclear whether its projects had been successful.

“The commission is still unable to identify and report the most efficient and effective approaches to reducing irregular migration,” chief auditor Bettina Jakobsen said. “The commission in the future will need to do more to demonstrate that these amounts . . . [are] used for the benefit of the EU taxpayers.”

“The allocation of funding was not based on migration-specific indicators,” Jakobsen added. For instance, it was not the countries with the highest number of people migrating to Europe that received the most money.

The auditors also found that the European Commission had no formal protocols to monitor human rights abuses in funded projects.

Severe breaches of human rights by authorities who received EU financing, such as in Libya, have led to repeated criticism that the EU funds have contributed to those crimes. The UN in 2023 alleged the Libyan security forces and armed militia groups (including forces funded by the EU) may have perpetrated war crimes.

Jakobsen said that while the EU had hired an external organisation to monitor human rights in Libya, there were no formal procedures “for reporting, recording and follow up on allegations of human rights violations in relation to EU funded projects”.

“The lack of formal procedures means that we cannot confirm that all allegations were followed up,” Jakobsen said.

Olivia Sundberg Diez of Amnesty International said: “The EU is failing in its basic task of ensuring that taxpayers’ money directed for migration management is not used to facilitate torture and other, sometimes deadly, abuses by unaccountable security forces.”

In a reply to the auditors, the commission said the EUTF had reached a “significant share” of its goals, but acknowledged “trade-offs” with data collection. The commission also said that organisations implementing the projects were responsible for ensuring human rights, but that its monitoring procedure “should be further strengthened”.

Chart du jour: Green race

The UK has overtaken the EU on key climate metrics including clean power, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and electric vehicles, according to a new Bruegel study released today.

No time to lose

Almost four months after Belgium’s national elections in early June, talks to form a new government are still dragging on.

Belgium’s acting energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten has called on the negotiators to finally get their act together, write Laura Dubois and Alice Hancock.

Context: Belgium has historically taken its time forming governments, not least because of its complex structure, which includes Flemish and French parties. Five parties are currently in coalition negotiations, led by Bart De Wever of the hard-right New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). But divisions — including over the overstretched budget — mean that there won’t be an agreement before mid-October.

“I’m really worried,” Van der Straeten told the Financial Times in an interview. “If you are stuck in long-term negotiations . . . you don’t take any new decisions. But competitiveness is not going to wait.”

Competitiveness is a key concern in Brussels, put into focus by a report by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi about the dismal state of the EU economy.

Belgium and its manufacturing sector are also affected by these challenges, according to Van der Straeten. She said urgent questions, such as whether industry can afford the current energy transmission tariffs, “cannot be solved in caretaking mode”, as the government is stuck with a budget cap.

“As long as we don’t have a full functioning governments, we are losing opportunities every day,” Van der Straeten said.

“These are really challenging times. You have to keep your head high and be rooted, grounded. Move forward without drama,” said Van der Straeten, who will remain a member of the federal parliament for the Flemish Green party.

“And moving forward without drama is maybe not for everyone,” she said, in a slight dig at her likely successors.

What to watch today

1. EU industry ministers meet in Brussels, to discuss competition issues.

2. G7 agriculture ministers meet in Syracuse, Italy.

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