The European Parliament is struggling with the financing of the special Emergency Trust Fund for Africa due to the delays with getting the payments from the EU member countries. Both the Parliament and the Commission have urged the member states to respect their commitments since they have so far only provided a fraction of the funds they had promised to help address development and security problems in the major African countries from which many migrants originate.
Since 2015, the Commission has initiated a number of funds to have a better control over the migration crisis. The main geographies that the funds cover are the Sahel region, Lake Chad, Horn of Africa and North Africa. The Emergency Trust Fund for Africa was also launched in 2015 and since then struggled to get substantial financial contributions. Beside the €1.8bn in European funds, which is largely covered by the EU’s development budget, the Fund has not succeeded to get the support it had hoped. Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said that “member states are not making enough effort regarding their promises of contributions to the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa”, adding that the Commission had hoped that the member states would contribute €1.8bn to achieve a total of €3.6bn.
However, the member states have so far only provided €89m which made the Commission step in and increase its share to €2.6bn. The European Parliament added that only a little help from member states would help the Fund overcome its financial problems and fulfill its mission. MEPs have therefore urged the European capitals to use any unspent credits from the EU’s 2016 budget and transfer them to the emergency fund. Despite the ongoing crises, a major part of the 2016 budget – some €6.4bn – has not been spent.
