European and African nations struggling to stem an exodus of migrants from Africa gather in Libya on Wednesday to tackle a problem with the potential to hurt economies and stir communal tensions on both continents.
The first European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) conference on migration is intended to send a signal that the two regions can work together to deepen security cooperation on land and sea borders and narrow the wealth gap drawing Africans northwards.
Few expect headline-grabbing initiatives from the two-day meeting, and no money will be pledged.
Instead, the focus will be on identifying long-term solutions such as creating more jobs in Africa to curb its ”brain drain” and widening opportunities for legal migration.
An AU statement called for lasting solutions to a phenomenon it said had worsened ”tensions and passions” and featured exploitation, xenophobia, racism and discrimination.
”There will be no immediate results, no concrete set of measures that start next Monday and make a big difference,” Anne Sipilainen, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry in Finland, current holder of the EU presidency, told Reuters.
”It’s really a political conference to send a political message that we are here together and need to work together.”
The meeting ”covers all related aspects — peace and security, human rights, brain drain and development”.
MIGRANTS DROWN
More than 26 000 West Africans, at least half of them Senegalese, have come ashore in the Spanish Canary Islands this year in an illegal migrant exodus dwarfing previous such flows.
Thousands more have entered Europe via Morocco or Libya after traversing the Sahara desert. Many are prey to conmen who pose as people-smugglers to swindle the unwary.
The exodus, which has seen hundreds of deaths from drowning or hunger as migrants set sail in fragile boats, has touched off political disputes in many European states and at times raised the diplomatic temperature between Europe and Africa.
European governments, some of them under pressure at home to toughen immigration policy, have accused African counterparts of failing to fulfil accords pledging to combat illegal migration.
Africa has urged Europe to be more open to legal migrants and argues a crackdown on migrants, without more development aid, will only push the flow to other places.
EU migration commissioner Franco Frattini said the EU would try to respond to that call. ”Tripoli is a unique opportunity to adress both legal and illegal migration,” he told Reuters.
A July 2006 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that at least 200 000 Africans enter Europe clandestinely every year. Another 100 000 try but are intercepted, and countless others try but lose their way or their lives, it said.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi won headlines in September when he called on Europe to pay â,¬10-billion ($12,7-billion) a year to Africa to help it stop the exodus.
Sipilainen commented: ”There certainly will be money available if country X underlines that they are creating capacity and addressing the root causes of migration as a priority — but it’s not a [money] pledging conference.” – Reuters