'We can never stop migration by building walls': EU Commissioner Urpilainen

Talking Europe

The EU believes it has an offer than can effectively counter China worldwide – its Global Gateway Investment Strategy. Jutta Urpilainen, the outgoing European Commissioner for International Partnerships, is adamant that this strategy offers long-term human development and avoids the debt traps that Chinese investment in Africa has come with. "We don’t want to create new dependencies," she tells Talking Europe. We discuss the impact that Global Gateway has had since its inception in 2021, as well as the EU's apparent shift in focus towards migration and border security, and what that means for its international partnerships.

But first, on the return of Donald Trump and what "America First" could mean for the West’s overall development assistance, Urpilainen responds: "It's very hard to predict, but I hope that the United States is still committed to multilateralism and the rules-based international order. When it comes to official development assistance, or ODA, the European Union and the US together provide around 70 to 80 percent of the global ODA. So I, of course, hope that the US stays committed to providing ODA funding."

Some have questioned the EU's own commitment to development aid, however, as an EU budget proposal suggests shifting €2.6 billion from development in order to tackle migration. "I hope that won’t be the case," Urpilainen replies. "I hope that external funding and development cooperation will be maintained in the next Multi-Financial Framework. We face many kinds of security threats. Russia is not the only one. We also have climate change. We have migration, we have terrorism. And in order to be able to address those security challenges, we need international cooperation. We need international partnerships."

The commissioner stresses that human development is a key concern for the EU. "That's why, for instance, in Senegal, we invest a lot in vocational education and training in order to provide opportunities for young people. There are 17 million citizens in Senegal at the moment. 70 percent of them are below 30 years old. And if we look at the forecast, by 2050, there will be 40 million citizens in Senegal. Can we stop them coming to Europe by building a fence or a wall? No. The only way to stop that is to invest and support them to develop their society. We can never stop migration by building walls."

Elaborating on Europe's "offer" in Africa, Urpilainen suggests that, unlike China, the EU doesn’t want to create new dependencies. "Many African countries have very high levels of debt, and a big portion of their revenues actually goes to debt servicing. That's why many of our partners, especially in Africa, have realised that China's offer – the Belt and Road Initiative – has actually caused this kind of huge debt dependency on China. And the reason why we wanted to create the Global Gateway Investment Strategy was to have our own positive offer. We wanted to support our partners in the Global South to achieve sustainable development goals, to boost investments in energy, in transport, in the digital sector, in education and in health. Since 2021, we have mobilised up to €179 billion worth of investments. We have 225 Global Gateway flagships across the world."

Turning to the controversial EU-Rwanda critical raw materials agreement, which has led to accusations that the EU is contributing to unrest in Rwanda's neighbour, the DR Congo, Urpilainen asserts: "One of the main objectives is to improve traceability and also fight illicit [minerals] trafficking. And we believe that through our memorandum of understanding and also the roadmap which is based on that MOU, we can make some concrete improvements. I met the prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo myself here in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, and we had a very constructive and good discussion. I think it has been clear from the beginning of this unfortunate conflict in the eastern DRC, that that we don't take sides. We really are keeping a balanced approach, and we have talked to both of the parties about the need to have a ceasefire and to end this conflict".

Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown