A new €75m contribution from the EU to an anti- Al Shabaab mission in Somalia takes the bloc’s total funding to €2.8bn.
Benjamin Fox
EU foreign ministers have agreed to commit an additional €75m to a mission combating Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia, confirming the EU as its largest supporter and plugging a major funding gap that had put the mission in jeopardy.
The cash from the EU’s Peace Facility will pay for the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission (AUSSOM) in Somalia, to which the EU has been the main financer since 2007, contributing some €2.8bn.
“The support measure will help maintain security and protect civilians in areas affected by Al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups,” said the EU Council in a statement.
It added that the the funding will primarily be used to pay the 12,000 personnel deployed in Somalia as well as non-lethal equipment and related services.
The cash will be seen as a major boost for the EU’s relations with the African Union headquartered in neighbouring Ethiopia.
Last autumn, AUSSOM had faced a €210m funding gap, prompting Kenya’s foreign minister Musalia Mudavadi and African Union commission chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf to warn that Somalia could “relapse” if the EU and others pulled their support.
The new AUSSOM deployment is initially expected to total 12,626 troops and police personnel, down from 20,000 under its predecessor the African Transition Mission in Somalia, with most of the troops being committed by Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt and Burundi.
The funding shortage was, in large part, the result of an impasse after US President Donald Trump’s administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which would have allowed the UN to cover up to 75 percent of costs for AU-led peacekeeping operations, with the remaining 25 percent coming from voluntary contributions such as the EU.
