Just days before scores of countries sign up to a landmark UN migration pact, a number of European Union nations have declared themselves unwilling to sign .
The UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be formally approved in Marrakech, Morocco, on December 11.
The drafting process was launched after all 193 UN member states, including the United States under President Barack Obama, adopted a 2016 declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own and agreed to work on a global compact.
However, the United States under President Donald Trump pulled out of the declaration a year ago, claiming that numerous provisions in the pact were "inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies."
Despite its non-binding nature, Bulgaria signalled this week that it will not sign the pact, as did Slovakia, whose foreign minister resigned in protest at his government's stance. Meanwhile, Belgium's government was teetering on the brink of collapse, riven by coalition differences over the pact.
"It's way too pro-migration. It doesn't have the nuance that it needs to have to also comfort European citizens," Belgium's migration minister, Theo Francken, said Thursday.
"It's not legally binding, but it's not without legal risks," he said, adding that rights laws are being interpreted widely in EU courts and those rulings are tying the hands of migration policy-makers.
Mr Francken said his right-wing N-VA party wants "nothing to do with it."
But Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel took the migration agreement to parliament Thursday, where it was approved against the wishes of the N-VA, the biggest party in his governing coalition.
The arrival in Europe of well over 1 million migrants in 2015 — most fleeing conflict in Syria or Iraq — plunged the EU into a deep political crisis over migration, as countries bickered over how to manage the challenge and how much help to provide those countries hardest hit by the influx. Their inability to agree helped fuel support for anti-migrant parties across Europe.
Experts say the pact is an easy target. Leaving it can play well with anti-migrant domestic audiences and pulling out has no obvious negative impacts on governments.
"The ones who opposed the global compact, have they read it? It is only a framework of cooperation with all countries," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday. "It is not binding. It doesn't put in question national sovereignty."
Other EU countries to turn their back on the document are Hungary and Poland, which have opposed refugee quotas aimed at sharing the burden of Mediterranean countries like Italy, Greece and more recently Spain, where most migrants are arriving.
But the withdrawal of Austria - holder of the EU's presidency until the end of the year - has been of high symbolic importance.
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Conservative Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, in a coalition with the nationalist, anti-migration Freedom Party, announced Austria's departure from the pact in October, highlighting "some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty."
Mr Francken said that never before had the head negotiator for the European states, Austria, "pulled out the plug. That gave a lot of political shock effect in all countries."
It remains to be seen whether North African countries, and others like Turkey, which the EU has outsourced its migrant challenge to, see this as a new sign that migration management can only be done on Europe's terms.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs
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Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
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The specs
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Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
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The biog
Name: Salem Alkarbi
Age: 32
Favourite Al Wasl player: Alexandre Oliveira
First started supporting Al Wasl: 7
Biggest rival: Al Nasr
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