An employee of the Brussels-based Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States was stopped by authorities in France en route to a conference in Niger almost four years ago carrying €81,556 in cash — but despite a French court ruling in November 2020, the money is yet to be returned to the organization, which receives millions of euros each year from European taxpayers.
The staffer was detained in October 2019 en route to a meeting of OACPS ministers of culture in Niamey, Niger, where OACPS said the cash was meant to pay for participants’ daily allowances, or per diems. In November 2020, a court in Lille, northern France, imposed a fine of €10,000 for failing to declare the money and ordered the cash be returned to OACPS. The organization paid the fine to French customs, but the €81,556 has yet to be recovered.
It is an embarrassing saga for OACPS as it struggles to convince the European Union and its members of its added value as a legitimate channel for progress on development and geopolitical issues. A new partnership agreement with the EU for the next 20 years is still unsigned, more than three years after the end of negotiations. And earlier this year French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to hint that the EU-OACPS format was “a bit worn out.”
About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
