EU breaches aid spending guideline in shift to ‘migration management’

The European Union is breaching its own guidelines by diverting hundreds of millions of euros intended for aid projects into attempts to keep out unwanted migrants, triggering a call for auditors to investigate. The 27-member bloc agreed to spend only 10% of funds within its seven-year €79.5 billion development budget on efforts to curb unauthorized arrivals, a ceiling inserted by the European Parliament after fraught negotiations for the 2021-27 period. But 14% was committed to “actions supporting management and governance of migration and forced displacement” in 2021 and 2022, according to a document seen by the Parliament’s development committee. The 10% guideline was exceeded even before the recent controversy over the swiping of €2 billion from the 2025 development pot to fund tougher border defenses, which was also criticized for flouting EU rules. Since 2022, expensive deals have been signed with more North African countries to stem migration — raising the prospect that the 10% figure is still being exceeded — and far-right parties are expected to push for it to be raised or removed altogether if they enjoy big gains in June’s parliamentary elections. The Greens/European Free Alliance group has asked the European Court of Auditors to investigate excessive spending on migration management within the EU’s main development tool, the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, or NDICI. Erik Marquardt, a Green MEP who sits on the development committee, also attacked obstacles to proper parliamentary “scrutiny” over such spending. The European Commission’s report on 2022 external spending failed to mention the 14% figure. “Three years into the programme, there is little political oversight on how funding feeds into the specific targets, especially on migration-focused programming,” he told Devex. “Even after countless questions and several commissioned studies we still don’t know exactly which activities are being financed and how they might result in human rights violations,” he said. “At the same time, member states have decided on substantial increases for migration spending — also through the reallocation of unspent funding from [NDICI]. This is not only legally problematic but also sends a bad signal to the Global South.” Stephanie Pope, Oxfam’s EU migration policy adviser, said: “This is part of the migration obsession the EU has, an obsession with stopping migration into the EU at seemingly any human cost.” Pope added that Oxfam’s research identified the potential misuse of aid rules in the funding of more than one-third of antimigration projects in Niger, Libya, and Tunisia, adding: “It’s important to focus not just on the amount — whether that’s 10% or 14% — but on how this money is being spent.” Although the 10% figure is not legally binding, the regulation setting up the NDICI stated it should only be disregarded in “unforeseen circumstances” and promised it would be “assessed annually or as necessary.” “The Commission should develop and use a robust and transparent tracking system to measure such expenditure and to report on it,” a guidance note promised — calling 10% a “political commitment.” The creation of NDICI, incorporating financing done for decades by the European Development Fund, has long been criticized as a shift away from using development spending to fight poverty in favor of curbing migration. Last year, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called “managing our external borders” her second priority after Ukraine in adjusting the budget, saying: “Greater ambition on migration must be backed with appropriate funding at European level.” But a commission spokesperson said the 10% figure is “an indicative target,” adding that a full assessment of the extent of spending on migration management will only be possible at the end of the spending period in 2027. "NDICI-Global Europe is a flexible instrument, allowing us to respond and channel funds to needs on the ground and does not exclude that the target reached may be higher," the spokesperson said. Update, May 20, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect the response from an EU commission spokesperson.