Help the poor in Africa to prevent illegal migration

Europe can do more by creating jobs and building institutions in the continent

Last month, President of the European Commission JeanClaude Juncker proposed a new programme that would aim to bolster economic growth in Africa as part of the European Union’s (EU) efforts to reduce irregular migration. Such a measure stands in contrast to others taken in recent years where, for example, Italy worked to stem the flow of migrants — with EU backing — by engaging local intermediaries, who have allegedly paid armed groups to cease smuggling. Avoiding the extreme flows of migrants as experienced in 2015 remains a top concern irrespective of the measures employed, not least to contain the rising tide of populism rooted in anti-migrant sentiment in Europe.

Three years ago, over one million people arrived irregularly in Europe. By 2016, the number had dropped to 382,000 and fell again in 2017 to approximately 186,000. This overall downward trend is largely due to fewer migrants and refugees taking the Eastern Mediterranean Route from Turkey to Greece, mostly as a result of the European Union’s intensified migration cooperation with Turkey and the near closure of Western Balkans Route. As a result, the Central Mediterranean Route, largely from Libya to Italy, has become the main gateway into Europe. The last two years have also seen a revival of the Western Mediterranean Route, mostly from Morocco to Spain. Between the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, the majority of recent migrants and refugees to the EU are from North, East, and West Africa.

The impact of irregular migration is of course predominantly on the southern EU states, not least because of the way the EU assigns responsibility for processing asylum claims. Under the Dublin regulations that form a key part of the Common European Asylum System the first country in which an asylum seeker arrives is usually responsible for processing that person’s asylum application. Revising these rules to facilitate fairer burden-sharing is proving difficult. Central European EU members are opposed to any mandatory redistribution of asylum seekers from so-called frontline states, like Italy — while Italy itself would like to see a more fundamental overhaul.

With intra-EU disputes hampering reform, stemming migration further has required increased cooperation and strategising with third states, though so far with mixed results. For example, although the EU might have liked to strike a deal with Libya, governance issues have meant that cooperation has remained restricted to training the Libyan Navy and Coast Guard with the aim of improving their capacity to tackle people trafficking and smuggling in Libyan waters.

The EU does, however, endorse and partially finance Italian efforts to engage Libyan actors to crackdown on irregular migration based on pact signed by Italy and the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord in early 2017. The resulting increased control of Libya’s maritime border has led to a reduction in departures from Libya to Italy since mid2017, leading the EU to hail this approach as a success. However, the measures have also increased the vulnerability of migrants and refugees.

In an effort to further reduce transit through Libya, the EU has also been engaging other origin and transit countries in Africa over the past two years. It has concluded country-specific, non-legally binding arrangements or “compacts” with Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. The aim is to improve readmission rates of their nationals irregularly staying in the EU and to solicit their help in curbing irregular migration. To maximise leverage on these countries, the EU is employing positive and negative incentives linked to a range of policy areas, including development, trade, security, education and mobility.

The EU has sought to broker similar types of agreements — called Mobility Partnerships — under which countries agree to readmit their nationals as well as third-country nationals who passed through their territories, strengthen their borders, in return for visa facilitation for their nationals and more legal pathways for labour migration to the EU.

But Mobility Partnerships have generated little enthusiasm on the part of North African state governments. As in Sub-Saharan African states, the issue of readmissions remains politically sensitive. In addition, there is a sense among North African policymakers that it would be fundamentally impossible to repatriate all third-country nationals whom they might be obliged to take back from the EU. At the same time, the promise of greater legal possibilities for labour migration to the EU have also failed to transpire. The EU is hoping that new funding streams will boost cooperation, but it is unlikely to be enough to radically alter the equation.

If the EU wants to successfully cooperate on migration with African countries it needs to do more to take into account local contexts, as is the case with the European Commission’s initiative. If not, cooperation will deliver disappointing results, while worsening the plight of those in need. Ultimately, the EU needs a more sustainable and sound approach to migration, which takes the migration interests and capacities of its partners seriously, and places the protection of migrants and refugees higher up the agenda. At the same time, it should be under no illusion that doing so can act as a substitute for developing a more effective way of dealing with irregular migration within the EU itself. The two must go hand in hand, if Europe is to avoid a repeat of extreme flows from years past.

The impact of irregular migration is of course predominantly on the southern EU states, not least because of the way the EU assigns responsibility for processing asylum claims.