Demystifying root causes: A critic of the EU’s domination and lack of impartiality

African partners did not only highlight the need to address the root causes of irregular migration but also clarified what those root causes entailed. Generally, root causes included a wide range of issues as unfair terms of trade, resource flow, climate change and external economic and political influence that fall under the broader meaning of neo-colonialism as highlighted elsewhere in this study. The construction of the African partners' root causes portrayed the EU actors as one of the key contributors to irregular migration.

The trade between Africa and Europe was heavily seen to be founded on structures of colonial engagement. African partners argued that resources are located in Africa, while industries are located in Europe. Europe would, therefore, remain a dominant partner - dictating the terms of engagement, some of which were detrimental to the African development process. The chair of the African Union, Zuma, explained what African

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countries termed root causes of irregular migration by referring to trade and industrialization.

“Africa and Europe should be discussing beyond the raw materials and beyond trade but industrialization. This is what will create jobs. We have to industrialize and modernize our continent; otherwise, young people will continue to go elsewhere.

[…] climate change is another issue. It is a shared responsibility. Africa contributes the least and suffers most”. ⁵⁸

She termed climate change as a root cause of African irregular migration and framed the EU to be part of the root causes, i.e., ‘…Africa contributes the least and suffers most’. In other words, part of the root causes of African irregular migration was pollution by the EU member states.

Her attempt to link Africa’s low industrialization and modernization to irregular migration management was a well-calculated strategy of diverting attention from the border protection mechanisms heavily embarked by the EU. She aimed to introduce a different agenda of unbalanced trade and economic relations between the two continents⁵⁹. The use of phrases like

‘We have to..’ indicated a shared role between Europe and Africa. Zuma supported the prevailing rhetoric of neo-colonialism and twisted economic relations and faulted the EU’s actorness in irregular migration control. To generate persuasiveness of her rhetoric, she combined the critic of the EU normative identity and Africa's industrialization proposal. In this case, she viewed African irregular migrants as a phenomenon predestined to remain when she said that ( i.e.,‘…otherwise young people will continue to go elsewhere’) unless the continent is industrialized.

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The president of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, gave a speech highlighting an intervention strategy in solving the root causes of African irregular migration. Like Zuma, he saw African irregular migrants as people who follow the direction of resources from Africa to Europe. He said,

“The issue of irregular migration can be resolved through development;

harmonious development of Africa. Resources are in the north. In the south, there is nothing. It seems to me that it is impossible to put an end to this [irregular migration] overnight”. ⁶⁰

Itno’s view that resources were in Europe while nothing was left in Africa resonated with Africa's dominant rhetoric that Europe had contributed to Africa’s underdevelopment through neo-colonialism, which set structures for the uncontrolled flow of resources. Besides, the rhetoric by the Chadian president aligned with a vast critical scholarship on the negative impact of EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Africa. ⁶¹

In his speech, Sally, the president of Senegal and ECOWAS, presented neo-colonial rhetoric more profoundly by elaborating on the flow of natural resources from Africa to Europe. Sally was principally focused on the impact of the Africa-EU trade and the benefits of natural resources in Africa.

“One of the causes of poverty in Africa, and a cause of irregular migration is trade.

Until we have a fair pay for our natural resources in Africa, we will continue to be dependent and irregular migration will continue. We have to ensure that there is a fair payment not just for our natural resources but also, most importantly, processing of these commodities on our continent would provide a greater added value than merely exporting raw materials. Local processing would create jobs on African soil. This is the agenda we have been fighting for everywhere, including

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from the G7, G20, to the United Nations. We also raised the same issue in this Summit, saying that it is not only about fair pay, but we also have to combat tax evasion because many different multinationals try using different ways to avoid taxes. In Africa, we have a lot of huge lost revenue, the fraudulent flow of money from Africa to Europe, which is estimated at $ 60 billion a year”. ⁶² [Translated from French]

Sall’s key point was the unfair terms of engagement between Africa and Europe. He addressed neo-colonialism in various ways. First, he criticized Western multinationals for not only paying peanuts for natural resources but also transporting those resources to Europe for processing, therefore, failing to create job opportunities in Africa. Besides, a more critical issue was tax evasion and the illicit flow of money from Africa. Such framing of rhetoric portrayed Europe to be in a continuous state of looting resources from Africa through multinational corporations.

He repeatedly emphasized on the uncontrolled flow of resources from Africa to Europe, urging that Africa can do well even without (EU’s) foreign aid if the resource flow issue was adequately addressed.

“If we were to cut tax evasion and repatriate those resources back in Africa, it would enable us to avoid reliance on foreign aid. It would also enable us to reimburse our external debts. These are issues that have to be addressed together with other security issues such as terrorism.” ⁶³ [Translated from French].

From his speech, Sall brought in another perspective of neo-colonialism: Africa’s reliance on foreign assistance rather than its own resources. This resonated with rhetoric presented by Kagame, the President of Rwanda, in 2014 (as highlighted in the earlier section) that

“what we want is to be self-reliant and get zero aid. In our case, we do not want anybody

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to control us [using aid]..” Here, Sall suggested that if the EU-Africa partnership was to manage the problem of African irregular migration sustainably, then it must work to manage resource flow to Europe and reduce Africa’s overreliance on EU’s development aid. It would also enable clearance of the huge external debt that African countries possess. As mentioned in chapter three, Senegal was one of the African countries that withdrew their input in joint migration control with the EU. One of the reasons why African countries did not comply was the belief that the EU relocated funds from mainstream development to migration control projects, including border surveillance in the transit regions. The rhetoric by Zuma as the chair of the African Commission and the president of Senegal, and the then chair of ECOWAS was applauded by other African leaders, including Kadré Dérisé Ouedraogo, the Secretary-General of ECOWAS⁶⁴ and Salaheddine Mezouar, Head of the delegation and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Morocco⁶⁵.

One issue that remained unmentioned by the European partners and that Zuma termed as a root cause of African migration was the unlawful military intervention by Western countries in Africa. According to the proponents of decolonization, unwarranted military intervention is another element of neo-colonialism. Zuma highlighted that,

“The African Union expresses its concern about the militarization of its shore and its airspace and a tendency to resolve to military actions as a solution to the problem we are facing without international authority and the consent of the neutral agencies.” ⁶⁶

By bringing into the scene the agenda of militarization, Zuma referred to the military intervention partly by the EU members in Libya that caused destabilization of the country and

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produced irregular migrants. Her rhetoric was as well a critic of the EU’s ‘normative power’, portraying military intervention in that case as not a force for good. Surprisingly, as the European leaders questioned the concept of ‘addressing the root causes’ of irregular migration, the African leaders maintained that there existed a link between the causes of African irregular migration to imbalanced relations. Further, they created an unfavorable situation for the European partners to pursue the border protection agenda by questioning the EU’s compliance with international law, thereby exposing its double-standards and inconsistency in its external actions.

Eventually, both partners signed the EU Trust Fund for Africa. Unlike the European partners who praised the signing of Euros 1.8 billion and termed it a huge achievement, African partners saw it as far less than enough to make any significant change. For instance, Samura Kamara, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister of Sierra Leone saw the pledged amount as insufficient for any tangible development.

“The money offered is not enough…There is a need to add more.. It is not enough because the problems are big”.⁶⁷⁶⁸

At the end of the Valletta Summit, Barnaba, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister of the Republic of South Sudan commented that

“Of course, the fund offered is not enough.. What is one billion Euro? More commitment from Europe is important.”⁶⁹

Based on how the African partners constructed the root causes of irregular migration, i.e., poverty and underdevelopment, the expectation was higher. The rhetorical question by Barnaba Marial, ‘What is one billion Euro?’ showed how much more commitment African leaders expected from the EU actors. However, it is important to note that the EU took note

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of these critical voices regarding the funding. Although the EU-Africa partnership initially signed the Valletta Action Plan with the EU pledging 1.8 billion Euros, later, the EU increased the amount to 4.7 billion Euros⁷⁰.

In summary, African partners were able to present their interests, i.e., the agenda of addressing the root causes and opposed that migration control. Even then, African leaders doubted how the fund would be put into use. After the signing of the agreement, the main concern was implementation. For instance, Abdoulie Jobe, Minister for Trade in the Gambia, also said that,

“EU Trust fund for Africa is just a tool that should be assessed through the

projects implemented. [..] The challenge is the aspect of implementation. We hope the implementation will be swift”.⁷¹

The same comments were echoed by William Lacy Swing, the Director-general,International Organization for Migration (IOM)⁷² and Jan Eliasson, the UN Deputy Secretary-General.⁷³ They saw the summit as the beginning of a new engagement between Africa and Europe.