Just in the nick of time for the Brexit vote, Brussels claims it will spend €62bn to halt migration from Africa. Of that €62bn, Brussels will pony up precisely €3.1bn and expects cash strapped EU countries struggling with their budgets to come up with another €3.1billion.
The rest of the money assumes 10 times leverage from private markets who will supposedly want to invest in Africa migration halting schemes.
Please consider Brussels Bargains with Mideast and Africa for Fix to Migrant Crisis.
Brussels is planning to dangle a host of incentives before Middle Eastern and African countries — from better trade terms to easier access to visas and even a share of €62bn of investment — on one condition: they stem the flow of people into the EU.
It is not clear that what worked in Turkey can be replicated elsewhere, both because of the costs involved and the often unsavoury governments on which Brussels will forced to rely. [Mish comment: assuming of course it has worked in Turkey other than temporarily, and that if it has “worked”, the final repercussions will not be worse than the initial problem].
“A new migration compact will mean Europe going even further down a dangerous and inhumane path: the EU rewriting its foreign policy so that it serves the single objective of stopping people from coming to Europe,” said Natalia Alonso of Oxfam.
A planned investment fund of €62bn will be dished out on the basis of co-operation on the migration issue, rather than need.
As a quid pro quo, countries such as Nigeria must more readily accept the return of migrants who entered the EU illegally. At the moment, only 40 per cent of illegal migrants are ever deported, meaning that most people who enter the EU illegally are able to remain.
The Costs
For the EU, the deals would come at a price. Following the Turkey deal, in which Ankara won €6bn in aid, European Council president Donald Tusk warned that Europe ran the risk of “blackmail” by potential partners.
To some extent, this warning has been borne out. Countries on migratory routes to the EU know that they have leverage and have proven willing to name their price. In May, Niger demanded an extra €1bn — roughly a seventh of its total gross domestic product — from the EU just to help it halt the flow of people who head through the country on their way to Europe.
The EU investment fund’s headline figure of €62bn looks large. But for the moment it is a mirage. The commission will put aside €3.1bn and ask national capitals to match this total — something that they have not always been willing to do.
If they do, the commission argues it can then leverage its €6.2bn pot by up to 10 times, by persuading private and other public backers to invest in infrastructure schemes in Africa and the Middle East.
“Final Sweetener” Warning to the UK
The commission also proposes opening a side door for highly qualified candidates from around the world to come to the EU by liberalising its “blue card” programme, the EU’s oft-ignored attempt to copy the US’s successful “green card” work visa.
At the moment, the scheme is far less popular than its cousin across the Atlantic. It is little used in all countries apart from Germany, which accounted for 90 per cent of all applications after it issued 11,580 in 2014. By comparison, Belgium issued just five.
The commission wants to loosen the rule slightly as part of a plan to make the “blue card” the main avenue for skilled non-EU applicants to enter the EU, superseding any national systems aimed at qualified migrants. Denmark, Ireland and the UK would not have to take part in the scheme.
Supposedly, Denmark, Ireland and the UK would not have to take part in the scheme. Anyone really believe that? For how long?
Let’s Talk
Here’s a fitting image courtesy of the Telegraph.
Refugees: “We want to talk with Cameron”. Indeed they do.
Blackmail and Mirages
Clearly there is not €62 billion the EU can dangle in front of Africa. There is precisely €3.1 billion of which Niger alone demanded €1.0 billion.
How this encourages private industry to invest €56 billion is a mystery.
Actually, I take that back, it is either a purposeful lie, sheer stupidity (or both), miraculously hatched just in the nick of time to tell the UK that something is being done about the migration crisis.
Icing on the Lie
I suspect the leverage is sheer stupidity, and the “blue card” exemptions for the UK, is icing on the lie.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The source should be the Onion. And why would any private group want to sink 50 billion Euros into such a deal. How would they get a return on their investment. On second though who has 50 billion Euros to sink into the deal. Those Eurocrats must sit around and do lines of coke when they come up with these ideas. It would be hilarious if it was not so sad.
Europe is so poor it can hardly come up with two sticks to rub together. They are so poor they have stopped funding their military! They are getting ready to get a lot poorer!
4 Stages of Islamic Conquest:
STAGE 1: INFILTRATION
STAGE 2: CONSOLIDATION OF POWER
STAGE 3: OPEN WAR w/ LEADERSHIP & CULTURE
STAGE 4: Totalitarian ISLAMIC “THEOCRACY”
But since it’s Europe, the indebted welfare sheeple, Step 1 will take down the entire continent with economic collapse. The rest will come quickly without an armed people.
I don’t think you understand .
EU bureaucrats don’t think up plans like this , they are handed them .
50 bn is peanuts , a rounding error in modern accounting , compared to the influence it can buy in Libya, Algeria, Syria , Tunisia and Morocco .
You are talking the of the profit involved in establishing a new political reality in these countries , the contracts available in rebuilding them , the access to the resources of these nations .
Spending to solve a migrant crisis is just a front, and one that will be used to further integrate European power on these countries, under the diplomatic cover of harmonizing access to Europe as a concession .
People in Europe will be expected to cheer the good resolution achieved .
Interesting timing
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-leave-campaign-10-point-lead-remain-boris-johnson-nigel-farage-david-a7075131.html
Mish — surprised you haven’t mentioned that the Bundesbank has said (officially) that the ECB’s policies must change, or they will cause further social unrest and “threaten the EU project as a whole”
https://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000407094.pdf
And while this report was (officially) written only by the Bundesbank’s chief economist, its conclusions were echoed in several different German publications by Bundesbank President Weidmann AND by German Finance Minister (and Merkel ally for now) Schauble.
German industry (aka EU’s tax base) is dependent on bank lending — whenever Merkel spouts her “read my lips, I did not have sex with any Brussels eurocrats”, we need to remember that her policies are threatening German banks, which means they are threatening German industry, which means current ECB policy is a clear and present danger to EU solvency…. that’s assuming some EU idiot doesn’t try to bribe African immigrants from invading and wreck everything first.
Even if the EU somehow manages to rig the Brexit outcome, even if British Parliament decides to end democracy in England, even if other countries don’t leave (Mish mentioned Spain yesterday I think?) — the EU still has a basic fundamental solvency problem called the ECB.
And the German people are not going to stay quiet, no matter what Merkel says or does.
Correction … Deutchebank’s chief economist wrote the report (not Bundesbank’s). But Wiedmann and Schauble have both publicly stated the same things.
“…by persuading private and other public backers to invest in infrastructure schemes in Africa and the Middle East.”
One would think by arranging secret non-negotiable documents guaranteeing principal and interest of investors with EU tax funds or seizure of public infrastructure systems or natural resources. Just another Zioneocon schvindle, of course.
Count me in…. investing in migration halting schemes…… what could go wrong….. really.
I will be rich……bwhahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
Yes!
For every 10 dollars you put into very unstable countries, the EU will put in 1.
What can possibly go wrong with that?
Mish
Take the money and build a wall, increase boat patrols and round up and drop them at the Turkish border. Once they realize they are not welcome, they will stop migrating.
Take away all benefits (welfare, family reunification, free housing, etc.) and they’ll simply turn around and go back home. No walls need be built. They are coming because they are being enticed by benefits, otherwise they would have stayed in Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan. They were safe there.
Stop destroying their people, public and natural infrastructure by faux democratization, endless bombs, murder squads and NGOs, bribes and introduction of rapacious “capitalism” and “free trade” and they won’t be motivated to emigrate in the first place. DUH.
That is the root of it , the invitation afterwards is all the encouragement needed for those displaced .
Allen Bennett – totally agree with you. You’re preaching to the crowd. We never should have been in the Middle East stirring up trouble in the first place. Hope you won’t be voting for warmonger Hillary, because she will just continue the practice. At least Trump is wondering what the hell we’re doing.
Unfortunately, once the refugees were displaced, I would have thought a lot of the young men (the thousands streaming through Europe) would have stayed and fought for their country. I mean, that’s what I would have done. Instead, they took the INVITATION we gave them and went north.
As well, in Turkey at least, out of the refugees that fled, there were only something like 200,000 of them in refugee camps. The rest (over a million) were working in Turkey, had found places to live, their children were going to school. But once they were enticed (by NGO’s and others – Merkel?) to go to Europe, they took the bait.
We are hell bent on destroying their countries and cultures, and it seems we are hell bent on now destroying our own. It won’t work and will result in endless pain.
Play – Loudly – Taylor Swift along the border.
FACT: Brussels Lies.
Treasury Department out today with monthly statement (for May)
Federal receipts growth skidding
Fiscal Year to date (october – may) over prior year’s
FY2012 …. +$79 billion (leap year)
FY2013 … +$237 billion (influenced by tax increase)
FY2014 … +$134 billion
FY2015 … +$167 billion
FY2016 … $36 billion (aided by February 29th … extra work day + extra tax deposit day)
contrast to FY2008 (leap year) … +$5 billion
Thanks Tony!
Will see if Britain exits or not.
Needless to say this is poor blackmail…not as bad as the Obama variant though who’s cronies have a 400 million dollar rocket rusting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral for two weeks which may or may not launch tomorrow….its third attempt I might add.
Oh, and whats with the rumor that all the EBT money has been cut off?
Pocohontus to the rescue?
Im sure she’ll March right into downtown Boston to explain to the entire “everything is just fine and it’s Donald Trump’s fault.”
Anywho…if Britain exits that will close the gold window in London for all those pretty, pretty boys and their gambling habits.
Hopefully they’re levered to oblivion too….
The best way to halt “refugee migration” would be to get the US to stop de-stabilizing countries throughout the Middle East and turning them into failed states.
But of course the puppet “politicians” in Europe and the Nannycrats in Brussels have absolutely no say in that matter.
Agree that the west should stay out of things we don’t understand and can’t really fix…
However, Reuters reports the Nobel Peace prize winning Obama has different plans:
Obama approves broader role for U.S. forces in Afghanistan
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-obama-exclusive-idUSKCN0YW055
“We” were winning that war, Bin Laden and his henchmen are dead. But Obama does not want to be forced to return his Nobel Peace prize to a bunch of Swedes who have become fed up with illegal immigration… so the war must resume
Count on the media pundits in the US to protect their man at all costs, even if it means censoring this story from the evening news. Remember: it’s all someone else’s fault!
Of course, we are revamping stats:
Cleveland Financial Stress Index under review; revised index expected Q4:2016
The Cleveland Financial Stress Index (CFSI), a measure of stress in financial markets, has been unavailable since May 9, due to the discovery of errors that overestimated stress in the real estate and securitization markets.
A thorough review of the index is being conducted to both simplify the index and enhance its robustness, while also taking into consideration changes in financial markets and institutions. This review and the revisions to the CFSI are expected to be completed sometime during the fourth quarter of this year, and additional details will be made available at that time. Thank you for your patience while we improve the CFSI.
For questions please contact CLEV Public Information.
https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/our-research/indicators-and-data/cleveland-financial-stress-index.aspx
This not to do with migration per se. Migrants are mere pawns in this plan, being used as the EU justification to refinance political influence in Near East and North Africa. It is the ‘new deal’ of the region, a compromise to integration that the European public are supposed to welcome as a relief to what is a sponsored migrant invasion.
Migrism is the government version of terrorism, a conjoined mirror of persuasive empathy that serves its ends.
Put bluntly, the west will have power and influence over the region. Understand it from this perspective and you will see that nor Erdogan nor any other leader who strays far will survive. The population of Europe are being sold the price to pay for this.
The error is that there are multitudes who will rebel against it, and there is at least one other global power in the arena ready to oppose.
Are the dear leaders so stupid to think that European nations are dumb enough not to recognize when a problem is introduced so as to impose a solution. The grave mistake is to attempt this by ensuring other reasonable solutions are permanently eliminated, but that was always the illusory path to absolute power.
“…the commission argues it can then leverage its €6.2bn pot by up to 10 times, by persuading private and other public backers to invest in infrastructure schemes in Africa and the Middle East.”
Should not be that hard. Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Italy et al. had plenty of takers. “Aid” or “investment” is just an “altruistic-sounding euphemism” for high interest rate loans several-fold higher than ZIRP or NIRP. Should be lots of takers with hot QE money to leverage. We are talking “fresh meat” for the banks and hedge funds. What is not to like there, especially if you need to offset bad EU loans on your balance sheets?
It is a brilliant scheme, worthy of John Law or Mr. Ponzi. “Refugee solution” is a great “cover story” to open up two more continents full of fresh meat (new countries, like oil-rich Nigeria) for banks and hedge funds to “sack.”
It is just a resurgence of the East India Company and Colonial lust dressed up in a new suit of clothes for the twenty-first century. As the comments make clear, plenty of other ways to stop the refuge flow that will really stop the refuge flow. EU could easily police its borders, as some countries are already doing, without exporting the Greece-Cyprus model to new suckers (countries). There is method and madness behind the seeming idiocy.
That is right .Effectively EU is going to direct funding to the projects of its choice in a manner that will protect it from direct ethical accountability, by mechanisms such as guaranteeing first loss to crowd in investment . The visible investment strategy is only the tip of what is going on as there will be the implicit backing of the EU policy machine to the endeavours chosen , something like a political nod that carries the weight of the whole EU bureaucratic apparatus , central bank included . Anyone not bored enough already can try to read through these explanations of the mechanics , they are about all that will be really disclosed as to the actual objectives , virtually nothing in other words as they window economic and social concepts and no more. What they do do is give the impression that EU is being run like a financial institution , which it is .
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-1967_en.htm
In short, these EU loans to the Middle East and Africa to stem migration are a “racket.” Anyone in Africa or the Middle East in their right mind looking at the results of EU loans to Greece et al. would have to be acting in their own personal interests first and foremost or need “strong persuading,” to use a gangster euphemism that encompasses force and threats. But this stuff is routine, and the EU/USA can point to Libya, Iraq, Serbia and Syria as examples of what happens to countries that do not comply. So, no doubt the loans will be accepted and the bankers and hedge funds will have the full collection force of the IMF, NATO and USA armed forces for late payment persuasive actions.
Then there is China, which may be the real target of all this, from a USA perspective. The USA War Party or Neo-Con agenda is to elbow China out of Africa. Like with EU sanctions against Russia over the Neo-Con Ukraine agenda, the EU is likely just another proxy, a second front, in the drive to displace China from Africa. In other words, the EU is the financial arm of the USA Neo-Con War Party military strategy to weaken or soften up China and Russia.
Loans to stop migration is a fairy tale. If the EU just made all of the Middle East and Africa eligible for the EU dole without leaving home and ineligible for the dole inside the EU, then the only refugees would really be those running for their lives. But that would not reap interest payments or weaken China.
Up to now most of the influence over these countries was opaque, basically high level corruption with strongman leaders. That created circumstances that were beyond western control given the independent nature of these leaders, as well as handing them a compromising position ( look up Sarkozy funding by Libya, Tunisia another). The politics sought to be introduced now are western compatible, presentable to westerners. It is an integration project where finance has the high hand, that will take adbantage of the confusion to encourage a paid and subservient ‘moderate’ reality.
European people have not been asked. European nations are constrained into accepting. There is no line of public responsibility.
I am not sure who exactly is behind this. You blame the US, but I think that it is a fully international organisation. Some European states have been practicing this sort of policy since whenever. That is one reason it continues, you just cannot pinpoint any of these people for legal or public responsibility.
I suspect the ECB will buy these “performing loans” at 100 cents on the dollar from Bain Capital a couple years from now.
Nowadays they are buying out corporate debt itself.