http://www.voanews.com/content/eu-poised-to-resume-development-aid-to-eritrea/3007701.html
News / Africa
EU Appears Poised to Resume Development Aid to Eritrea
Eritrean refugees wait in a hanger to depart to Sweden. The EU hopes
to reduce the number of Eritrean migrants and refugees through aid
programs aimed at stabilizing the country.
Salem Solomon
October 15, 2015 10:52 AM
Eritrea reserves some of its harshest criticism for Western nations
and often has strained or hostile relationships with its neighbors.
So it may come as a surprise that Eritrea is improving its ties with
the European Union.
Evidence of this is in a program known as the 11th European
Development Fund, which may allocate $229 million over the next six
years for projects in Eritrea relating to renewable energy, energy
efficiency and economic governance.
The allocation has not been finalized and the money has not been
released, officials stress. But in recent years, the program has
funded small-scale projects in Eritrea, including using solar panels
to power irrigation in rural areas, and has supported community courts
to improve the legal system.
Christian Manahl is the head of the European Union Delegation to
Eritrea. “Concerning the relations between the European Union and
Eritrea, we have had difficult times, but in the last couple of years,
the relations have improved considerably," he said. "We have a solid
cooperation program which is ongoing now."
Although the EU has funded projects in Eritrea since independence in
1993, when the work focused mainly on post-conflict reconstruction,
Eritrea suspended its cooperation with the EU in 2011, a year when it
expelled nearly all foreign aid agencies working in the country.
Manahl says the Eritrean government has since reviewed its position.
"I am convinced the government has come to the opinion that we can
have a mutually beneficial relationship based on the cooperation
program that we can agree upon on both sides," he said.
EU Wants to Investigate Alleged Abuses
The two sides do, however, continue to have disagreements. One of
these is Eritrea’s continued refusal to allow U.N. representatives to
investigate allegations of human rights abuses.
A U.N. Commission of Inquiry and Human Rights recently accused the
government of extrajudicial killings, forced labor and stifling free
speech and freedom of religion. Groups like Amnesty International,
Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have documented
similar abuses and harshly criticized the government for years.
Eritrea has long rejected the allegations, and criticized the
commission’s report for relying on politically-motivated testimony
instead of independently conducted research.
Manahl says the EU delegation regrets that U.N. investigators have
"not had the opportunity to visit the country." He said he and other
EU officials believe that "anybody who visits the country is in a
better position to give a more objective, a more complex picture of
the reality here."
"We do have, of course, a dialogue with the government of Eritrea on
human rights issues," he adds. "This is an important part of European
foreign policy and it is in Eritrea as it is in any other country.”
Stable Eritrea = Fewer Migrants
The EU has a vested interest in seeing Eritrea stabilize. Along with
Syria and Afghanistan, the nation is one of the top refugee-producing
countries in the world , and hundreds of thousands of migrants have
ended up on European shores or died crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
A spokesperson for the EU said development assistance will be all the
more important if Eritrea abolishes life-long military service and
young people are able to join the job market. “We must offer them an
alternative to fleeing the country, with all the dangers it involves,”
she said.
Similarly, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and
Development Neven Mimica of Croatia believes investing in Eritrea is
money well-spent by the EU. "We need to assist people with concrete
programs that address concrete needs of the people,” Mimica said in an
email to VOA.
Manahl stressed that economic progress in Eritrea will be a
stabilizing factor for the region and European countries.
“It is in our interest and it is in the interest of Eritrea that the
young people have a perspective here for their future and that we
create conditions that they stay here in their country," he said. "We
have nothing against migration, but we would like to have migrants who
leave in channels that do not expose young people -- actually
thousands of young people -- to consider the risks on the journey to
Europe."
Received on Thu Oct 15 2015 - 15:08:03 EDT