The EU’s €210m settlement with Mauritania has been marketed because the bloc’s newest ’money for migrant management’ cope with an African state. However the EU can also be hoping to see a severe advance in relations between Brussels and Nouakchott to spice up its International Gateway funding programme and begin rebuilding its affect in West Africa and the Sahel.
The deal outlined by European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen and Mauritanian counterpart Mohamed Ould Ghazouani on Thursday (8 February), will see the EU assist the West African nation deal with the foundation causes of migration, present humanitarian help to refugees and crack down on human traffickers.
That may embody a doubling of humanitarian help for Mauritania, together with help to refugees from Mali.
Following final 12 months’s €700m settlement with Tunisia, whereby the EU would supply funds for migration management, infrastructure initiatives and price range help, talks on an analogous cope with Egypt have been ongoing and are additionally near completion.
Officers stated {that a} ”widespread roadmap” on migration administration with Mauritania could be finalised this spring.
The EU’s border company Frontex is predicted to publish figures within the coming days revealing a pointy improve within the variety of folks transiting by Mauritania to aim to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Spain’s Canary Islands in small boats.
Mauritania can even obtain investments for inexperienced hydrogen initiatives, a part of the EU’s International Gateway funding programme — based mostly on China’s Belt and Street initiative — to fund inexperienced and digital initiatives in growing nations, significantly in Africa.
Whereas the deal is a part of the von der Leyen fee’s technique of brokering ’migration partnerships’ with African states, it additionally marks an try by the EU to reengage within the Sahel area the place its affect has been severely diminished by a sequence of current coups in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.
”The scenario within the Sahel could be very precarious and Mauritania performs a key function in making certain stability within the area,” stated von der Leyen.
Accompanying the EU fee president in Nouakchott, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez stated Mauritania performed ”a basic function because the democratic reference for the soundness within the Sahel, an important area for Spain and for Europe” with ”the autumn of democratic governments, rise of terrorist assaults, a spike in refugees and internally displaced folks and the worsening of an already acute meals safety disaster”.
The EU has promised €40m of further help for safety below the African Peace Facility in 2024 and that it’ll proceed supporting the Faculty of Defence in Nouakchott, offering schooling to senior navy officers between 2023 and 2025.
Different commitments embody EU funding to equip a further battalion to combat terrorism and safe the border with Mali and to strengthen the navy camp of N’Bekeit.
French president Emmanuel Macron ended Operation Barkhane, the eight-year lengthy deployment of French troops to deal with Islamic insurgents throughout the Sahel in November 2022, amid rising anti-French resentment amongst native folks.
Each France and the EU have struggled to adapt to the spate of current coups within the Sahel — and the rising affect of Russian safety outfits such because the restructured Wagner mercenary group.
Within the 10 years earlier than 2023, the EU spent €600m on civilian and navy missions within the Sahel and educated 30,000 members of the safety forces in Mali and Niger.
However Mauritania was additionally concerned within the Qatargate money for affect scandal within the European Parliament and allegedly paid €200,000 to former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, purportedly in change for assist laundering its fame on human rights, significantly slavery.
Mauritania’s entry to the USA’ free commerce scheme below the African Development and Alternative Act was suspended between 2019 and 2024 over issues about employee rights and using pressured labour.
Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, one of many MEPs to be arrested by Belgian police in relation to the money for affect scandal, who chaired the parliament’s Mauritania delegation — held conferences with president Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in 2022.
Till now, that money seems to have purchased little significant affect or growth of its EU relation past a fisheries settlement with the EU that was signed in June 2022.