BRUSSELS — African countries will have to stem migrant departures if they want to continue receiving EU development aid, the European Commission will suggest as part of its seven-year budget plan to be unveiled next week.

The idea, which is outlined in an internal draft document seen by POLITICO, links the EU’s help for poorer countries to concrete results in preventing people coming to the bloc.

It reflects the EU executive’s hardening approach toward migration after right-wing parties secured substantial support in last year’s European election. The shift would see the EU’s development agenda align with that of the U.S. and the U.K., both of whom use foreign aid as leverage to deliver on the priorities of domestic voters.

In the plan, the Commission suggests potentially cutting funds to poorer countries if they don’t play their part in reducing migration flows.

“It shall combine all appropriate tools and the necessary leverage through a flexible incitative approach with, as appropriate within this context, possible changes in [the] allocation of funding related to migration,” the Commission wrote in the document laying out its blueprint on foreign aid in the new budget cycle, which covers the seven years from 2028.

In doing so, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is yielding to pressure from her center-right European People’s Party and a majority of countries spanning Italy to Denmark.

They are keen to replicate and expand the EU’s controversial 2023 deal with Tunisia to stem migrant departures also to other African countries.

“Increased coherence between migration, asylum and external policies is needed to ensure that the Union’s external assistance supports partner countries to manage migration more effectively,” the document reads.

However, in order for these ideas to take effect, von der Leyen will have to convince skeptics in the left-leaning Socialist and Democrats and the Greens, whose support is needed to approve the new budget in the European Parliament.

This would be a big change from the EU’s current aid model, which largely comes without strings attached.

Von der Leyen will unveil the budget proposal next Wednesday.

The Ukraine question

The Commission will propose lumping several different aid programs into a single Global Europe Fund subdivided by geographic categories.

The six regions are set to be Europe; the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf; Sub-Saharan Africa; Asia and the Pacific; Americas and the Caribbean; and global, according to the text.

The Commission will allocate a specific amount of cash to each macro-area. The figures have been omitted from the document, however, and will be shared internally only hours before the Commission unveils its proposal.

The money for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine will not eat into the funding for other regions.

The document suggests there will instead be a separate and undefined money pot to cater for the war-ravaged country from 2028 to 2034.  

“The Instrument should provide the framework for assistance for the fast recovery, reconstruction and modernization of the country,” the document reads.