African and EU leaders met in Malta this week to try to find new solutions for an ongoing political conundrum: the increasing number refugees travelling to Europe to seek safety.
Should Europe’s borders be more open? This is what the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has long advocated, offering refuge to the lion’s share of Europe’s arrivals.
Or should they be closed? This is the policy favoured by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, which he enforced with razor wire and the effective abolishment of the asylum system.
A key outcome from the two-day meeting was a $1.9bn pot of money for African leaders to try to stop migrants leaving for Europe in the first place.
But the creation of this so-called “trust fund” had a mixed response from its supposed beneficiaries.
The Somali prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, and Mahamadou Issoufou, the president of Niger, have both argued that investment in the continent would be more effective.
Senegalese President Macky Sall suggested that Africa’s problems could be eased if world leaders did something to address the tax avoidance costing countries many times what they receive in aid.
Others on Twitter questioned the rationale of sending more aid without clear guidance on how it should be used – and how exactly governments will prevent people from leaving.
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