For over a decade, Europe’s migration policy has swung between preserving humanitarian traditions like the right to asylum and responding to political pressures from rising migration. The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted in 2024 and set for full implementation by 2026, marks a pivotal change, suggesting the EU recognizes the limitations of its post-2015 migration strategy.
That year, over a million migrants and refugees entered Europe, mainly through Turkey and Greece, and also from Libya to Italy. This highlighted the inadequacies of Europe’s asylum system. The Dublin Regulation, assigning asylum responsibility to the first entry country, collapsed under the migrant influx. Greece and Italy struggled, while Central and Eastern European nations opposed mandatory asylum-seeker redistribution. This crisis revealed that the EU’s migration policy, reliant on a balance of national sovereignty and cooperation, couldn’t handle such a crisis.
In response, European institutions turned to external migration control, aiming to prevent migrants from reaching Europe by shifting border management to transit and origin countries. This involved major financial commitments, including the creation of the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa in 2015 to tackle irregular migration’s root causes, allocating billions to support economic projects and border control.
Migration partnerships expanded. Turkey agreed in 2016 to host Syrian refugees for financial aid. Similar arrangements were made with countries like Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, and Egypt. Morocco received substantial funds to improve border security and fight trafficking, while Tunisia received over €3 billion since 2011, partly for migration cooperation. Recently, over €600 million was allocated to Morocco for public policy support, including migration management, and Mauritania secured over €200 million for Atlantic route surveillance.
Overall, tens of billions have been spent on migration management. The objectives were to reduce Europe-bound departures and stabilize origin countries to tackle migration’s structural causes. Yet, migration flows to Europe continue unabated, merely shifting as routes close, forcing migrants onto more perilous paths. For instance, when the Turkish route closed, crossings via the central Mediterranean rose.
This showcases a common pattern: closing one route simply redirects flow to others. Smuggling networks adapt, creating new strategies to bypass controls, making European migration policy a constant contest with criminal networks.
Moreover, the externalization strategy raises human rights concerns. Reports of abuses in partner countries cooperating with the EU are rampant. In Libya, returned migrants suffer violence and harsh detention. In Tunisia and elsewhere, violations against sub-Saharan migrants, arbitrary arrests, and expulsions are reported post-cooperation with Europe.
This situation poses a critical question: how much can the EU delegate border management without compromising its legal principles? Europe was built on norms recognizing asylum rights and prohibiting returns to inhuman conditions.
The 2024 migration and asylum pact signifies an effort to control a fragmented policy. Migration has become central in Europe’s debates, fueling populist and nationalist movements. Comparisons with the US are made, yet, unlike federal America’s centralized system, Europe’s hybrid structure complicates coherent policy-making.
The new pact emphasizes deterrence, speedier procedures, and returning rejected asylum seekers. Some may be transferred to “safe” third countries for claim processing outside the EU, raising moral/legal concerns about asylum rights and legality in potentially unsecured environments.
Europe grapples with balancing its values against citizen concerns over migration’s impact on stability. The migration pact isn’t a solution but a response to the enduring nature of migration, tied to global inequalities, conflicts, demography, and climate change. Europe seeks a new equilibrium between upholding values and managing migration, a challenge it has yet to master.
(*) Isaac Hammouch is a Belgian-Moroccan journalist and writer, author of several works focused on societal issues and contemporary transformations.
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