This may sound obscure but is, in fact, emblematic of the way Europe spends migration funds in Africa: through processes the European Council of Auditors has called "opaque", and with great haste.
The reason the EU is able to bypass her own public procurement laws is that there is a hidden clause in the legal documents of the EUTF, in which the EU declares a state of crisis in all countries covered by the EUTF for the duration of the fund. No grounds are adduced to substantiate that there is a crisis in and throughout all of these 26 African countries. And the general nature of the exception makes the provision evidently overbroad.
As a consequence, it is practically impossible for African organisations to get projects funded by the EUTF. At least 75 per cent of the Fund is spent through EU- or UN-organisations. Experts have called this the formation of a ‘migration cartel.’
© De Correspondent
