News Analysis: Merkel's North Africa trip mainly aimed to curb migration

Coming under heavy pressure after allowing a million refugees into Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel's two-day trip to North African countries were mainly aimed to curb illegal migration to Europe, political analysts said.

Merkel started her trip on Thursday visiting Egypt and then Tunisia and had also planned a trip to Algeria last week but it was called off after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika fell ill.

WHY EGYPT AND TUNIS

"Egypt and Tunisia are main gateways for African migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe," said Tariq Fahmy, professor of international relation with American University in Cairo.

"Merkel's visits to Egypt and Tunisia are part of efforts to limit migrant flow to Germany and Europe ahead of parliamentary elections in her country later this year," Fahmy told Xinhua.

Her policies allowed a million refugees into Germany in only two years, which put Merkel, who is campaigning to win a fourth term in office in national elections in September, "under fire," Fahmy explained.

Merkel's talks in Egypt and Tunisia, two countries neighboring Libya, also covered ways to respond to years of instability exploited by smugglers in Libya.

"Without a political stabilisation of Libya, we won't be able to stop the human traffickers operating out of Libya," Merkel said in her latest weekly podcast.

In Egypt, the German chancellor said "there are routes for illegal immigration from Libya to Germany. We have a lot of mutual concerns and interests in putting an end to this."

Moreover, she told the Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsion Friday that the political situation in Libya is difficult.

"No one is more interested in political stability in Libya than its neighbours, but I'll say, because of the migration issue, it's also important for us Europeans," she said in Tunisia.

Egypt and Tunisia are important centers for stepping up border control with Libya, the political expert Fahmy noted.

According to Fahmy,"the visits also are part of efforts to slow the flow of migrants into Europe and increase intelligence-sharing to combat Islamic State terrorist operations."

"Libya is the most dangerous line for Europe, because the largest expansion of smuggling organizations has been going on there in recent years," he pointed out.

He deemed joint strategies among the Mediterranean countries in addition to reaching rapprochement in points of views over the region crises are necessary to find a mechanism for dealing with illegal migration.

TOO EARLY TO JUDGE MERKEL EFFORTS

Merkel said on Friday Tunisia had agreed to take back 1,500 rejected Tunisian migrants from Germany.

Merkel also said the German government would provide Tunisia with 250 million euros (265 million U.S. dollars) in aid for development projects.

Germany also pledged to provide Egypt with 500 million dollars in support of its economic program.

Answering a question on the potentials of success of Merkel's cooperation efforts to push forward for reducing migrant flows, Fahmy said "it's too early to see the fruits, and proactive measures in cooperation with the North African countries should be taken."

Egypt, which suffers also greatly from the flows of illegal migration, with nearly five millions living on its land is an essential partner for Europe to solve the problem, he added.

Curbing the illegal migration requires deterrent measures and better means for securing the borders as well as intelligence cooperation to unveil the organizations that fund and run the migration operations, he explained.

Gamal Salama, political professor with Suez Canal University, also sees tackling the illegal migration as "complicated," considering it's "a security issue in the first place that requires tightening the border control and providing the crossing countries with technological modern equipments for detection."

He added that dealing with the migration issue socially and economically will "take long time," because the origin countries of migrations are usually very poor, and only aiding them with simple developmental programs "isn't the solution."

Meanwhile, Saeed Lawindy, international relations researcher with Ahram Center for Political and strategic studies, said "Merkel's efforts to stop migration must be associated with joint agreed upon-measures with North African countries."

He added besides securing the ground and coastal borders, "the European countries should allocate aid programs to the African countries that suffer destitution." Endit