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Faced with hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in EU countries in 2015, policymakers from member states felt the pressure to show aquick reaction. Convening with the leaders of several African countries in the Maltese capital, Valletta, they decided to fill a pot of money. This money was not dedicated to helping integrate the thousands of people who had arrived in the European Union. Instead, the so-called EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) was supposed to "address the root causes of irregular migration" so that fewer Africans might try to make their often dangerous way to Europe.

Was this goal reached six years and 5 billion later? Together with partner newsrooms within the European Data Journalism Network, DW is taking stock of the EUTF. More than 250 projects were initiated through to the official end of the project assignment phase in December 2021, and many of them are still up and running, with the peak disbursement of EUTF funds in summer 2020. With the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) already set up as the next tool and with 8 billion ($9 billion) likely to be allocated to the migration management efforts it is worth looking at the data available.

The EUTF had several objectives that had been presented as equal in the initial documents: Addressing the root causes of irregular migration, preventing and fighting smuggling and trafficking, strengthening protection for people fleeing their homes, improving cooperation on return and reintegration, and advancing the possibilities for legal migration.

The money was not allocated equally toward those objectives. Though a state-of-play-document from February 2018 stated that the "bulk of its resources are dedicated to the creation of jobs and (e)conomic (d)evelopment" only 10% of the funds were allocated to this goal.

The objective of investing primarily in job creation changed only two months later, at an April 2018 meeting of the EUTF's Strategic Board. According to the official minutes, Chair Stefano Manservisi who at the time was head of the European Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development said a lack of resources had made it necessary to further prioritize existing proposals and focus on "return and reintegration," "refugees management," "securitization of documents and civil registry," "anti-trafficking," "essential stabilization efforts in Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and the Sahel if resources are available," and "migration dialogues."

So it comes as no surprise that almost a quarter of the funds the largest share went into migration management.

It is important to keep in mind that the majority of Africans who leave their homes voluntarily or forced seek to move to neighboring countries and regions within Africa. In 2020, for example, 80% of African migrants did not leave the continent, according to a policy brief by the Institute for Security Studies.

Despite the stated goal of of improving the conditions that cause Africans to migrate irregularly via dangerous routes, the EUTF "had to do more with Europe than with Africa, because for Austria to host 40,000 irregular migrants is more worrisome than for Uganda to host 1.3 million refugees," said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor at the Migration Policy Centre and formerly the program coordinator for migration at the African Union Commission.

Several of the experts DW spoke with noted that the EU's focus on irregular migration would not necessarily be the most important aspect on the topic of migration for African policymakers.

"A large portion of movements in the past used to happen through legal pathways because of the colonial history so, for example, from Nigeria to the UK, or from Francophone countries to France or Belgium, or to the Middle East due to geographic proximity and religious rituals," Mehari said.

Though an initial stated intent of the EUTF was to also support more legal pathways for Africans to EU countries, the fund ultimately focused mainly on irregular migration. Instead of providing more legal visa opportunities, for example, the objective became to manage the flow of asylum-seekers, refugees, and people who don't have the necessary documents or permits to move or work in another country.

The EU border agency, Frontex, has registered fewer irregular border crossings by African nationals since the EUTF was established in 2015, and Africans have filed fewer applications for asylum in EU member states.

The observed decrease in crossings and applications by citizens of EUTF recipient countries tracked with similar drops in numbers for citizens of all African countries, implying that, overall, the EUTF did not have a measurable impact on migratory movements toward the European Union on this scale.

Though fewer Africans made their way to the European Union, people across the continent continued to leave their homes in increasingly larger numbers. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the number of Africans who left or fled their homes and became internally displaced or refugees in other African countries almost doubled from 2015 to 2020.

"The individual reasons for people moving differ, as do their specific motivations," said Ottilia Anna Maunganidze, who specializes in human security, international law and migration at the Institute for Security Studies and authored a 2021 policy brief on migration from Africa to Europe. "So dedicating any funds should always appreciate this and be tailored appropriately." Maunganidze said the EUTF rollout had done this in some cases, but not in all. In regions where the European Union has maintained a longer presence and relied on local expertise, the tailoring was more successful.

In the case of Niger, Maunganidze said, the EUTF's approach even reinforced what it intended to fight. "Niger is one of the poorer countries on the African continent," she said.

"It's also the youngest, with the median age of just about 14 years of age. When thinking about interventions within Niger, focus really should be on questions of early childhood development, on questions of education, integration and community involvement. But, across the Sahel, the approach has been almost an externalized border policy of the European Union. The focus was on the movement itself and not what are the opportunities that people are not getting at home that result in this desire to move. Now, when you impose a heavily securitized migration-management approach that is intended to contain movement and they impact a local economy and local trade, such that they unfortunately have that unintended consequence of limiting local opportunities pushing people out through irregular channels and dangerous migration routes."

People will still want to move, but, instead of being able to go through legal channels, they are forced to opt for being smuggled across the borders.

Migrants from Niger await boarding ahead of a repatriation flight from the airport of Libyan city Misrata back to their home country.

Maunganidze said the task went beyond taking different demographics into account. "A lot of the issues are structural and systemic and require a long-term engagement in the context to be able to address them," she said. "So it is not necessarily realistic to focus primarily on short-term wins. But, perhaps, if there's an adjustment in terms of implementation of projects, then maybe in the long term that could be realizable but not at the scale of funds that the EUTF has had."

There have been attempts to address the systemic and structural issues. The highest-funded EUTF project, for example, focuses on "state building" in Somalia. The government has been supported with 107 million to reinforce institutions and expand social services, with the primary objective of increasing the trust of other states, potential creditors and the population in the government. According to the project's website, actionable results are two "strategies, laws, policies and plans developed and/or directly supported," as well as four "planning, monitoring, learning, data-collection and analysis systems set up, implemented and/or strengthened" with the funding so far since project start in 2018.

Another example is a 54 million project in Sudan by the UN World Food Programme, which reportedly provided assistance related to nutrition and food security to 1.1 million people. For context: In 2020, a total of 9.6 million Sudanese people were experiencing severe food insecurity, according to the Food Security Information Network.

Young Ethiopians are scanning job offers posted in a display case in Addis Ababa

Then there was a 47.7 million project in Ethiopia directed at building resilience and economic opportunities, which reports creating almost 11,000 jobs with EUTF funding. An absence of paid work is a chronic issue in Ethiopia, where 1.1 million people aged 15 or older were unemployed in 2020, according to estimates by the International Labour Organization.

Because the EUTF was set up as an emergency tool to react to migration and assign projects quickly and flexibly, the fund was not necessarily envisioned as a long-term endeavor. Several observers told DW that the root causes of displacement and migration cannot adequately be addressed by an instrument designed to tackle problems in the short term.

"The EUTF went wrong with the root-causes approach, because of the narrative that it sets: this idea that, once we eradicate the root causes, people are going to stop moving," said Alia Fakhry, a migration researcher at the German Council for Foreign Relations. "Eradicating root causes is one thing, but conflicts and natural disaster will continue to push people away from their homes."

The NDICI, the follow-up to the EUTF, has a much wider scope. Ten percent of its budget is to be dedicated to migration, with a strict monitoring system in place, "but the idea of root causes seems kind of gone," Fakhry said. "Maybe that is where the attention and criticism the EUTF drew paid off."

Edited by: Milan Gagnon

This project is a collaboration among several media outlets in the European Data Journalism Network. While DW was project lead, Voxeurop, Openpolis and OBCT were contributing partners.

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How the EU spent billions to halt migration from Africa - DW (English)

The German companies issued a joint statement in which they say they support the European Commissions Fit for 55 plan but call for a level playing field for all stakeholders inside and outside the continent.

The Fit for 55 program is based on three essential measures to reduce environmental impact: introducing a tax on fossil fuels, tightening emissions trading, and increasing the proportion of sustainable aviation fuels in operations.

Both the Lufthansa Group and the companies that manage the airports in the German cities of Frankfurt and Munich agree that modifications to the project are necessary. If the current Fit for 55 plans were to be implemented without appropriate changes, it would result in a one-sided cost increase for airlines and hubs in the European network. Connectivity, value creation and employment in Europe would be significantly weakened, they claim.

That is why Lufthansa Group, Fraport and Munich Airport appeal to the EU Parliament and Council to improve the EU Commissions proposals and initiate a regulation that promotes effective climate protection while maintaining the competitiveness of European hubs and airlines. Equal treatment of airlines and airports within the EU and their competitors outside the EU is crucial. So far this has been lacking. Given that the proposed climate protection requirements are decidedly stricter for EU airlines and hubs than for non-EU competitors, corrective action is necessary, they sentenced in the statement.

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Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, noted that it cannot be in the interest of the EU and Europe to put European aviation at a disadvantage with Fit for 55 and thus weaken its international competitiveness. Carbon emissions from aviation would be changed and not reduced by the measures that are currently planned. As a result, Europe would become more dependent on third countries with respect to transport policy. This cannot be the intention of policymakers.

In this connection, Stefan Schulte, CEO of Fraport AG, emphasized: Yes, we need more effort and speed in climate protection! It is not a question of whether but of how to implement ambitious climate policies.

For his part, Jost Lammers, CEO of Flughafen Mnchen GmbH, added that we need a fair and effective climate policy that does not put European airlines in a worse position than their competitors. A mere kerosene tax does not save a single gram of CO2. However, emissions trading and the PEF blending mandate, properly implemented, are effective instruments for the desired decarbonization of aviation.

Based on this request, it remains to be seen how the European Commission will channel the companies claims, which are of great relevance in the European aviation market.

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Lufthansa, Fraport and Munich Airport call on the European Union for a fair and effective climate policy - Aviacionline

Britain and the European Union on Wednesday announced coordinated sanctions against pro-Russian separatists, as well as more oligarchs and their relatives.

The UK government said that, in coordination with the EU, it is sanctioning "178 Russian separatists" in eastern Ukraine, in addition to six more oligarchs and their families and employees.

"This comes after multiple reports last week that Russia was barbarically targeting civilians in those regions," Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement.

"In the wake of horrific rocket attacks on civilians in Eastern Ukraine, we are today sanctioning those who prop up the illegal breakaway regions and are complicit in atrocities against the Ukrainian people," said Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

"We will continue to target all those who aid and abet (President Vladimir) Putin's war."

Further oligarchs hit by sanctions include Vagit Alekperov, the head of Russian oil giant Lukoil, and Vladimir Ievtouchenkov, chairman of the Sistema conglomerate.

Britain is taking part in an international effort to punish Russia with asset freezes, travel bans and sanctions, after Putin ordered the assault on Ukraine on February 24.

Those sanctions have so far targeted Russian defence, trade and transport companies.

Truss said the latest package would include extending a UK import ban on Russian goods, to include iron and steel from Thursday.

"We will not rest in our mission to stop Putin's war machine in its tracks," Truss said.

London has sanctioned more than 1,400 individuals and businesses linked to Russia -- including more than 100 oligarchs and their family members -- since Moscow's military offensive began.

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Britain and European Union coordinate over more Russian sanctions - Economic Times

As it became clear on Sunday evening that Marine Le Pen will face incumbent Emmanuel Macron in the second round of France's presidential election, the European Union and NATO are coming toterms with the possibility of a Euroskeptic leader in the Elyse Palace - onewho has been a longtime enthusiast of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

For Brussels, Washington and NATO, the next 10 days will be crucial for all three to take on board whether Paris will remain committed to the European project and stay on side againstPutin's war in Ukraine.

When Le Pen faced Macron in the 2017 run-off, the National Front candidate lost having garnered only 34 percent of the vote.

After meticulously rebranding the far-right party in a bid to attract more mainstream conservative voters, the leader of the newly renovated National Rally has refined her image, toned down her rhetoric and reconciled France's role within the European Union.

With all the spit-and-polish that has brought the National Rally into the heart of France's political mainstream, polling agencies expect her to offer Macron a much more serious challenge for the presidency than she did five years ago.

But many of Le Pen's detractors and opponents at a European level are unconvinced that her core external policies have changed.

Speaking on France Inter this Tuesdaymorning, LePen stressed that she hasno "secret agenda" forFrance to leave the European Union, even if her vocal attempts toreform the bloc fail.

However, she did underline that she believes "a large majority of French people no longer wantthe European Union as it exists today."

She continued by blasting theEuropean Unionthat she believes functions in "an absolutely undemocratic way, which advancesby threat, by blackmail and which implements policies that areagainst the interests of the people."

Although Marine Le Pen has ditched past plans to haul France out of the EU,the free-movement Schengen zone and the euro, her cynicism towards Brussels remains intact.

Ultimately, Le Pen envisages the EU as an alliance of memberstates, and when asked if she would leave the EU if all her attempts toreform the bloc failed, she replied: "Not at all."

The policies: what the second-round candidates, Le Pen and Macron, stand for

Macron backpedals on retirement age to appeal to working class voters on the left

For the outgoing president Emmanuel Macron, he will be seeking to refocus the agenda onEurope, insisting to his supporters - and the undecided electorate - thatLe Pen's policies wouldcreate a deep crisis within the European Union.

Le Pen won her 23.15percent behind Macron's 27.85percent by appealing directly to France's working class voters on the issues of purchasing power, energy prices and better living conditions.

Macron, who entered the campaign late, refused to engage in any debate and appeared to be aloof to the concerns of the people of France, with more international grandstanding over Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Since Sunday's result, the incumbenthas come to terms with the fact that he has a lot of convincing to do on the ground between now and 24 April, to keep the electorate on his side and maintain his advantage as a president seeking re-election in a time of war and crisis in Europe.

Speaking to RFI this Tuesday, David Rachline went for Macron's jugular over his track record in giving the people of France a voice when it comes to the European Union.

"We areready for a debate on this subject," said Rachline, the Rassemblement National's vice-president. "[Macron] does not want to touch anything, to change anything, whereas the European Union must be re-founded. It must be profoundly reformed."

Rachline maintains that the French "want to be freer, more independent" and have theirdemocratic choices respected along with their partners in Europe.

It should be remarked that those partners include Germany's ultra-nationalistAfD, Italy's Lega party and of course excellent relations with Hungary's freshly re-elected Viktor Orban and Poland's Law and Justice administration under Andrzej Duda.

Within the European Union, the national control of immigration and security unites them.

But for the Rassemblement National, the party "wantsto engage in economic protectionism in order to save French companies and to better protect them," Rachline told RFI, adding there are two very different visions of the EU at playin the second round campaign.Macron want's to maintain Europe like "a sieve" while Le Penwants a Europe that "protects".

Le Pen insists that France'snational laws should prevail over European legislation, a move that has already seen Poland being sanctioned by the European Commission for doing the very same.

"The European Union must also bend to the will of the European people," Rachline insists. "[The EU]must at least take them into account, which is not the case today.

"This is also a major difference in vision between Emmanuel Macron and us. We want the European Union to finally take into account the voice of the European people."

But if a future "President Le Pen" marches to Brussels to renegotiate everything and isstone-walled by European institutions, what will the consequences be? Could it go as far as France's withdrawal from the EU,triggering a so-called "Frexit"if a far-right government in Paris doesn't get what it wants?

"Let's leave room for debate, let's leave room for this negotiation," Rachline replied inconclusively. "We want to have this debate. We want to set it up and negotiate ... We have a lot of European partners and groups within the European Parliament which will enable us to make these democratic choices tomorrow for the benefit of the European people."

However, when it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Le Pen's desire to pull out of the alliance's integrated command has rung alarm bells at NATO's HQ.

In what is styled as a selfless commitment for the French "to be no longer caught up in conflicts that are not ours", France remains the only European nuclear power within the alliance, and her previous close relations with Vladimir Putin haveprovoked particular concern.

Although Le Pen has outwardly condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine, she has been hesitant on sanctioning Russian coal and gas supplies as it could have an adverse effect on French living standards.

It would appear over the next 10 days;Marine Le Pen will be unflinching when it comes to holding tight to her populist agenda.

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What might a Le Pen presidency mean for the future of the European Union? - RFI English

Fasset, a global digital asset gateway, has announced its entrance into the European Union (EU) after it secured a cryptocurrency authorisation. With the authorisation, Fasset will strengthen its global operations to serve the growing digital asset sector in the EU market and beyond.

Fasset previously secured three separate full authorisations from the Labuan Financial Services Authority and as part of the companys long-term growth strategy, this latest milestone will allow Fasset to bring its frictionless digital asset services to more retail and institutional investors across the world as it strengthens its presence globally.

Celebrating the achievement, Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Fasset Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and former Advisor to the UAE Prime Ministers Office said: The digital asset sector has become an undeniable force in todays financial and technological landscape. The EU is a hotbed for crypto activity, with a number of member states leading the charge in both innovation and implementation.

With this licence, Fasset can continue on its mission of enabling greater access to crypto assets, bringing investors a step closer to the future of finance. The EU will serve as a cornerstone as we look to connect the remittance corridor between the West and the East.

EU global leader

The EU continues to be a global leader in digital asset adoption with Central, Northern and Western Europe outpacing all other regions to be the biggest cryptocurrency economy in the world. Representing a quarter of global cryptocurrency activity worth over $1 trillion, the EU is already an established hub for digital assets and a thriving market for growth and innovation in emerging technologies, playing an influential role in steering the future of finance.

Launched in 2019, Fasset is a multi-country digital asset gateway that aims to connect the next billion to buy, sell, send and store digital assets such as cryptocurrency and real-world asset tokens. Bringing easy, free, and frictionless access to digital assets, Fasset is providing people in frontier markets with the knowledge and the tools to build a better future.

A leader in asset tokenisation, Fasset built the worlds first comprehensive ecosystem dedicated to merging digital asset innovations with the real economy.

Previously partnering with Middle East fintech company Infinios (formerly known as NEC Payments), Fasset successfully completed the first Proof-of-Concept tokenisation of a Tesla charging unit in a move to accelerate progression of the electric vehicle (EV) industry in pursuit of creating a more sustainable future.-- TradeArabia News Service

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Fasset to expand crypto operations in European Union - Trade Arabia