(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

2.3. The role of European policies
A number of recent reports have pointed out that the role of domestic actors in land
grabbing might be more important than was what initially suggested. 37 However, in
Africa, the situation can greatly vary from a country to another. 38 And as the World
Bank highlights, “as local businesses may act as fronts for foreigners, the share of land
acquired by foreigners may be larger than reported.” 39
The EU and its Members States have an influence in driving land grabbing in
several respects. The Monitoring report identified several ways in which European
authorities are involved in land grabbing. It underlined how EU policies directly and
indirectly stimulate the factors that increase demand for land (food crisis, financial
crisis, energy demand). Indeed, a number of European companies are involved in
acquiring land for food, agrofuels or speculation in Africa, sometimes with the support
of EU governments which may provide diplomatic, financial or other support to private
deals. The report also analysed the relationship between foreign aid and development
assistance, and between trade and land grabbing, showing how the EU has been
promoting policy reforms such as land privatisation or international investment
protection regimes, which facilitate land grabbing.
The large majority of these findings are still valid, and little had been done since the
publication of the Monitoring report to address these concerns. Recent evidence
confirm that the EU and EU Member States are still involved in land grabbing, either
indirectly by creating the conditions for or not regulating EU-based companies
investing in land, or directly by encouraging large land deals.
With regards to the first type of involvement, a January 2012 report by Friends of the
Earth demonstrates how European companies, investment funds and sovereign wealth
funds are increasingly investing in land to hedge their price risks, driving land grabs. 40
This report reviewed 29 institutions from 9 European countries, and concludes that a
significant number of financial institutions across Europe appear to be involved in
financing land grabs directly or indirectly, sometimes with explicit links to human rights
abuses. This is notably the case of HSBC, which invested in a company linked to
forced evictions in Uganda. 41 The Oakland Institute (OI) has also reviewed in detail the
impacts of the investments of some EU funds, such as the UK based company
Emergent Asset Management, which has acquired over 100,000 ha of arable land in
over a dozen Sub-Saharan countries, where it controls all aspects of food production
and distribution for global markets, including unlimited water rights. 42 The Oakland
Institute even found that several Scandinavian churches made land investments in
countries like Mozambique, in schemes that involved thousands of hectares of illegally
acquired land. 43
Regarding the direct involvement, it is clear that European policies have large
implications beyond EU borders. The independent Research Centre OPERA for
instance presented in May 2010 a report titled “'EU Agricultural Production and Trade:
Can More Efficiency Prevent Increasing 'Land-Grabbing' Outside Of Europe?” which
shows that in 2007/2008 almost 35 million hectares of land beyond European borders
was used for the benefit of Europeans, with the EU evolving into the single most
important importer of agricultural commodities and food, 44 and this trend is likely to
continue. 45 The Oakland Institute, for example, studied the involvement of the
28