African countries distrust the European Union despite doing business with it, as they understand that Brussels is driven strictly by its own interests, specifically with regard to migration management, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik on Thursday
ST. PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th July, 2023) African countries distrust the European Union despite doing business with it, as they understand that Brussels is driven strictly by its own interests, specifically with regard to migration management, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik on Thursday.
Asked on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg if she believed African countries trusted the EU, Austria's ex-top diplomat responded, "Not at all."
"Actually I was involved in the EU-African summit which we did in December 2018 when we had the European Union chair and the EU approach is all about migration," she added.
Kneissl recalled that the EU-Africa summit boiled down to "which countries to conclude what side of contracts that they would keep migrants back home."
"You remember the tremendous amount of money Brussels and several EU countries sent to Libya just to keep the illegal migration back to Chad, back to Mali with (former Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi bombed away. That became a problem, now the EU is concluding contracts with Egypt, with Tunisia, Morocco," the ex-diplomat said.
Paying developing countries to keep their migrants away from the EU's borders is a "very negative approach," Kneissl said, adding "Because it is not really business, it is not true equal-footing business."
The second Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian Forum is taking place in the Russian city of St. Petersburg from July 27-28. Summit participants are expected to sign a number of international and bilateral documents. Sputnik is an official media partner of the forum.
