Valletta Summit agrees on concrete action plan
On 11 and 12 November, the Valletta Summit of the EU Heads of State or Government and their key counterparts from African countries reached agreement on a Political Declaration on migration and a concrete Action Plan.
35 African and 31 European leaders expressed their concern about the migration flows that are growing fast and pledged to tackle the reasons forcing people to depart. The five priority domains of the Action Plan are:
- addressing the root causes of migration;
- enhancing legal mobility;
- protection of migrants and asylum seekers;
- tackling migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings;
- return and readmission.
The Action Plan projects will be financed with the aid of an Emergency Trust Fund for Africa launched today. The Fund’s capital will total at least EUR 2 billion, of which EUR 1.8 billion consists of EU budget resources and the rest derives from Member State contributions. Finland’s contribution to the Fund is EUR 5 million. Finland will propose high-technology projects to create jobs in the SME sector in Africa. In his speech, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä stressed that education and employment are instrumental in instilling belief among young people in a future in their own country.
’No society can afford to keep young people unemployed for long. We must work together with the private sector to encourage the creation of jobs, entrepreneurship and new innovations for example in the communications technology sector’, noted Prime Minister Sipilä.
The Action Plan consists of 16 concrete projects which will be completed by the end of 2016. These include, for instance, fostering digitalisation and start-up businesses within the scope of bolstering the SME sector, and developing agricultural production and increasing the added value of products with processing.
Inquiries: Kare Halonen, State Secretary, EU Affairs, tel. +358 295 160 315, Jari Haapiainen, Special Adviser (EU Affairs), tel. +358 295 160 406 and Anne Sjöholm, Head of Communications for EU Affairs, tel. +358 40 537 0733, Prime Minister’s Office
English translation of the press release published on 13 November 2015