Médecins Sans Frontières no longer wants funding from the European Union. In protest against its humanitarian policy, the association cuts financial bridges.
Médecins Sans Frontières is ready to cut 56 million euros in funding. The humanitarian association announced on June 17 that it would no longer accept institutional donations from the European Union and its member states. By cutting ties with Europe, its leadership protests against the management of the migration crisis.
100,000 people stranded in Syria
The operation of MSF is mainly made possible by private funding – which represents 92% of the contributions. But in 2015, the European Union provided the association with 19 million euros, its member states 37 million. A significant windfall that the association now wants to do without.
Indeed, MSF is clearly opposed to “harmful deterrence policies and to the intensification of attempts to push people and their suffering away from European coasts.” The association delivers alarming figures: on the Greek islands, 8,000 people can no longer advance. On the border between Turkey and Syria, the situation is even more worrying: 100,000 people are “stuck between closed borders and front lines”, denounces Jérôme Oberreit, international secretary general of Médecins Sans Frontières.
Agreements that annoy
An agreement between the countries of the Union and Turkey concentrates the anger of the leaders of MSF. It brings one billion euros in humanitarian aid to this country which bridges the gap between Europe and the Middle East and is home to 3 million Syrian refugees. But in return, the state must fight more against migration to Europe. Neither more nor less than “the instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid”, in the eyes of MSF. “Is Europe’s only offer to the refugees that they stay in the countries from which they are desperately trying to flee? », Is indignant Jérôme Oberreit.
The situation is not about to improve since this pact could be extended to 16 other countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to the European Commission. This time, trade and development aid could be reduced if action is deemed insufficient. Among the countries targeted are Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan – which represents the main source of refugees after Syria.
Countries hosting refugees (mid-2015). Source : report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
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