Innovation in Migration Management. The EU searches for a new paradigm. Will it Succeed?

Several months before the milestone Pact on Migration and Asylum enters into force and lays a basis for a large-scale reform of the bloc’s migration policy, the European Commission published another curious document on the topic. This is the first European asylum and migration management strategy It defines the priorities that will guide the agreement's implementation over the next five years.

While the Pact is based on a more resilient internal system and a more assertive externalization, the strategy is more focused on the latter, posing the risk of an unbalanced implementation.

The intrinsic difficulties of Europe’s new migration paradigm were studied by Alberto Tagliapietra, senior program coordinator at the Global Minds Fund (GMF). This is a program that has enabled researchers from the Ghent University (Belgium) to cooperate with partners from the Global South on addressing the global problems.

The Pact resulted from a call for a ‘more pragmatic and realistic approach’ to migration. However, nineteen member States soon demanded more ‘innovative solutions’ to combat migration. That led the European Commission to start working on some ‘new paradigm’, not clear to everyone and based on a more “assertive and comprehensive” migration diplomacy

The most prominent factor is disagreement over more solidarity. Member States' reluctance to embrace burden-sharing measures has been evident since 2015, when national governments refused to participate in the Juncker Commission's proposed relocation scheme. Since then, a focus on internal reform has given way to externalizing the issue through several measures such as the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the EU-Turkey Statement, and the Migration Partnership Framework.

Europe could not agree on a more resilient internal regime and continued with tightened asylum rules and pressure on third countries to manage EU-bound migration flows. That was the only solution on which member states could agree.

Despite the announcement of a new paradigm, there is no real innovation proposed in it.

The European Commission’s key principle that defines its approach in the five years to come is migration management as a joint responsibility for all actors along migratory routes. This concept should essentially underlie an equitable partnership in a new comprehensive EU policy towards countries of the Global South.

However, this strategy not just risks perpetuating vicious cycles of instability but also opens ways to counter EU influence. Niger represents a case that highlights those risks. In 2015, under EU pressure and following the deaths of 92 people en route to Algeria, the country passed a law, under the then interior minister Mohamed Bazoum (who would later become president), to counter irregular migration. Its implementation led to substantial financial support from the EU. Europe allocated around EUR 671 million and listed Niger among the Migration Partnership Framework's priority countries.

Eight years later, the military junta that deposed Bazoum repealed the law soon after it came to power, claiming it was a symbol of EU post-colonial interference. The European Union’s money was thus tossed to the wind.

But the EU is steel keeping an eye on Africa and turning its own border management crisis into an emergency for that continent. That has led to nothing. Instead of making ineffective strategies the core of a new paradigm, Europe must correct its internal deficiencies and strengthen its cooperation with third countries. That primarily includes legal pathways for migrants and capacity-building for readmission and reintegration in partner countries. At the same time, member States should consider their own interests, such as maintaining social security nets and stimulating economic growth.

Europe can find a durable solution to its migration and asylum problems only if it switches from a unilateral model to an equitable partnership with third countries. But that is not in view for now. A Europe clinging to outdated models will keep sinking into the migration quagmire.