It is the eternal pending subject. Immigration management has been on the European agenda for years without really finding a solution. In addition to the Migration and Asylum Pact that must be negotiated between the member states and the European Parliament with the aim of closing it before the end of the year, there is another aspect of the EU's migration policy: that of the "external dimension", as They call in Brussels the "strategic agreements" with third countries, especially on the African continent.
After years of poisoned disputes and tensions due to the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016, and with a mandatory relocation of asylum seekers – and which almost no member state complied with – Brussels wants to shelve that stage.
On the one hand, the institutions are negotiating the migration pact that provides that when a country receives an unusual number of arrivals of asylum seekers, an emergency instrument will be activated so that European countries share out quotas of migrants. If some refuse, they must pay 20,000 euros per person per year, with staff and equipment for their management.
In addition to accelerating the returns of migrants who do not have the right to asylum, they also want to emphasize the reinforcement of external borders through agreements with countries of origin and transit, such as Tunisia or Egypt. "Perhaps it is not the most effective way, but it is the only one that exists at the moment, in which there is no type of internal agreement," reflects Camino Mortera, director of the think tank Center for European Reform in Brussels, in conversation with La Vanguard . “The Migration and Asylum Pact is not going to stop the next migratory crisis, if there is one, so there will be many more these bilateral pacts,” she adds.
Agreements with countries of origin and transit are not new. Spain was a pioneer in the EU in carrying out agreements on migration when the route to the Canary Islands was the main one. It was also a similar solution to the one that was reached in March 2016 with the pact reached with Turkey, with an initial package of 3,000 million (and which was later expanded) so that the coasts would be monitored more and be in charge of hosting the more than million refugees, mostly Syrians. It is a strategy in which the EU wants to bet now more than ever, since it is also the point at which the member states converge: those that are the main gateway (the south) and those of destination (the north ).
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has traveled twice in the last month and a half to Tunisia together with the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, and her counterpart from the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, to close an agreement with the country, very focused on migration management. The head of the Community Executive has insisted on several occasions that the plan goes beyond simple border management and preventing migrants from leaving the Tunisian coasts (sub-Saharan Africa, but also from places as far away as Pakistan or Afghanistan); It is also about offering an investment plan for a country drowning and on the brink of bankruptcy. "In times of geopolitical uncertainties, it is important to deepen cooperation with our strategic partners," Von der Leyen stressed after signing the agreement.
Although Tunisia in recent months has been concerned about political persecution and the lack of fundamental rights, and Brussels has criticized it, pacts are signed with the country's controversial president, Kais Said, who has already warned that he does not intend to be "the guardian of the borders” of the EU. The North African country, where the Arab spring was born, but which, with the authoritarian drift, has drowned in its desires for a better future, is now a key partner.
The signed plan has five pillars, focused on the economy, the ecological transition and migration. With the commitment of 150 million euros to offer immediate liquidity; also more than 300 million for projects, for example, renewable energy, and finally, 105 million euros for border management, with the shipment of equipment, such as drones and rescue boats. European sources insist that the plan "is not a blank check" so that the Tunisian authorities have access to European money and "can do what they want" with it.
For later, and linked to a reform agenda that still needs to be negotiated with the IMF, the European Commission would be willing to mobilize "up to 900 million euros". The agreement is also key for Italy, where more than 65,000 people from Libya and Tunisia have arrived in the first six months of the year.
Von der Leyen also recently assured in a letter to member states that the Commission is "ready to mobilize an additional €110 million by 2023" for projects in North Africa, on top of the €208 million already committed. An agreement with Morocco for 152 million euros was also signed in March, to which is added an aid package of 500 million between now and 2027, signed last year.
The European Union, with this type of pact that it wants to replicate in countries like Egypt —and which has lived under a dictatorship led by General Al Sisi for ten years—, opts for realpolitik and pragmatism. With the Government of Cairo, it has already signed an item of 111 million euros, which is added to an additional 80 million signed in October also for border management. The bloc is surrounded by countries, especially in the southern neighbourhood, which are autocracies.
Camino Mortera believes that it is not about "the EU doing nothing" in the face of human rights in these countries, but it can act through a "carrot and stick" policy. In other words, reach agreements on key issues that interest the Twenty-seven –such as migration– and at the same time apply instruments such as the conditionality of development funds in regards to human rights.
On the other hand, the coup d'état in Niger has also been viewed with enormous concern in Brussels due to the consequences it may have, as it has been key up to now in the management of migration, as it is a transit country in which 90% of West African migrants pass through it.
For Mortera, one of the objectives of the EU is "to try to solve as many migration problems as possible before the elections to the European Parliament." “Everything that we are seeing from the EU must be looked at through the prism that the political consensus of the governments is not in human rights or in compliance with international law with refugees (…), but that the only consensus political is the protection of the borders, an orderly management of immigration and giving the general sensation to the population of control” of this.
