EU to finance refugee camps in Africa

EU interior ministers are moving towards financing refugee camps in North Africa to help decrease the flow of refugees through Greece and Italy.

“Europe must ensure that refugees are not brought to Europe at all, but brought back to safe places,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on January 26 in the Maltese capital Valletta where the EU ministers were discussing ways to end the crisis.

“The people taken up by the smugglers need to be saved and brought to a safe place, but then from this safe place outside Europe we would bring into Europe only those who require protection.”

The financing will help the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration and other aid agencies handle refugee camps better and process the refugees before they can be allowed to move to Europe. The international organizations would be tasked with screening migrants and repatriating those whose claims are rejected.

The refugee camps in Libya or neighbouring countries like Tunisia would also dissuade migrants from risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean and ensure that rejected asylum seekers do not stay in Europe.

After last year’s EU-Turkey deal and the closing of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean routes, the number of refugees stepping on to European shores has decreased to less than a tenth of last year’s arrivals. In January this year, 3,829 migrants, less than 8% of last year’s 48,029 arrivals for the same period, reached Europe.

Nonetheless, most European countries are still looking for more effective ways to control migration. Germany, whose interior minister spoke at Valetta about processing refugees in Africa, is also working on stricter measures to deport migrants ordered to leave the country after their asylum claims are rejected.

The UK is looking to take less Eritrean migrants as it has recently made the country directive on Eritrea less favorable for asylum seekers’ claims from that country to be accepted. A December report by a UK delegation discussed the human rights situation in Eritrea with the Eritrean government and reported, “If [Eritrean] government representatives are to be believed the risk of persecution or mistreatment in Eritrea is lower than our country guidance suggests.”

Italy also wants stricter controls to deport migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected and wants to help the Libyan government crackdown on human smugglers, as the EU plans to spend 200 million euros on training and expanding the Libyan coast guard.