"We have built an EU external migration policy when there was none", Mogherini says

16.10.2019

The European Commission has taken stock of all work strands of the European Agenda on Migration in its Progress Report. The report highlighted that almost 760,000 lives at sea and over 23,000 migrants in the Nigerien desert were rescued with EU support since 2015.

 

Unprecedented funding worth 9.7 billion EUR has been mobilised among others through the EU Trust Fund for Africa and the Syria Trust Fund.

The creation of the Joint AU-EU-UN Taskforce to address the migrant situation in Libya has proven to be successful in achieving results on the ground and represents a unique framework for cooperation.

Over the past years "we have developed new partnerships and strengthened the old ones, starting with the African Union and the United Nations", said EU High Representative / Vice-President Federica Mogherini.

"Together we are saving lives and protecting those in need by enabling legal migration channels, addressing the drivers of migration, and fighting against smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings", she further underlines. 

Together with the African Union and the United Nations we helped over 48,000 migrants to return safely to their homes and evacuated more than 4,000 people in need of international protection from Libya or through Niger for further resettlement. 

https://twitter.com/eu_eeas/status/1177113529436033024

During their last meeting the members of the AU-EU-UN Taskforce "deliberated on how to consolidate cooperation with the Libyan authorities in efforts to scale up assisted voluntary returns and evacuations from Libya, dismantle the existing system of arbitrary arrests and detention of migrants and create alternatives to detention".

EU support to Libya continues and new programmes have been adopted in July by the EU's Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. 

In the field of countering migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings over 350 smugglers were arrested with the support of Operation Sophia and the EU-Niger Joint Investigation Team.

"The past years have confirmed that no country can address this complexity alone. It is only by working together, by joining forces that we can tackle these global challenges in an effective, human and sustainable way", Federica Mogherini emphasised.  

 

Main photo: Creative Commons


See Also