SIRTE, Libya - European
nations should pay 10 billion euros ($12.7 billion dollars) a year to Africa to
help it stop migrants seeking a better life flooding northwards into Europe,
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Saturday.
In a speech to an African Union (AU) ceremony, Gaddafi added that African and
European leaders should meet soon to discuss the phenomenon, which has soared to
unprecedented levels and touched off internal political disputes in many
European states.
"In our final statement we will ask Europe to pay 10 billion euros per year
if it really wants to stop migration toward Europe," Gaddafi said.
He was speaking at a AU gathering of African presidents and prime ministers
marking the seventh anniversary of a summit of African leaders that decided to
set up the African Union and set out a timetable for doing so.
"We want an African European summit as soon as possible. We want to be
considered as partners. We want support but without preconditions," he said.
He added without elaborating: "Earth belongs to everybody. Why they (young
Africans) emigrated to Europe -- this should be answered by Europeans."
A July 2006 report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said that at least
200,000 Africans enter Europe clandestinely every year. Another 100,000 try but
are intercepted, and countless others try but lose their way or their lives, it
said.
Some leave from West Africa in rickety boats trying to reach the Canary
islands. Others try to cross the Sahara desert and then try to cross the
Mediterranean via Morocco or Libya. Still others leave via Somalia to try to get
into Europe or the Gulf via Yemen.
The tally of illegal Sub-Saharan Africans coming ashore in the Canaries has
risen sharply -- more than 21,000 so far this year, more than five times the
2005 total.
Spain, in the frontline of Europe's fight to curb clandestine migration, has
lost patience with what it sees as a poor response from African countries to its
pleas for help.
In Madrid's toughest comments yet, Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa
Fernandez de la Vega on Sept 4 accused African governments of failing to fulfil
agreements pledging to combat illegal migration.
Ministers from more than 50 African and European nations agreed at a meeting
in Morocco in July on a broad raft of measures to jointly combat illegal
migration. Among the moves they agreed was clamping down on trafficking and
policing coastlines better.
