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Abstract
EU migration and asylum policy is facing tough challenges at the southern borders of the Union as migration and asylum pressures rise, fuelled by political instability and poverty in several regions of Asia and Africa. Current European border control practices create three spaces of control: externalised borders, through readmission and return agreements which enrol third countries in border control; the EU borders themselves through the work of Frontex and the development of a whole arsenal of technology tools for controlling mobility to and from the EU; and the Schengen area, whose regulations tend to reinforce deterrence at the borders through the Smart Border System. As a result, the EU’s balancing act between irregular migration control and protection of refugees and human life clearly tips towards the former, even if it pays lip service to the latter. More options for mobility across the Mediterranean and more cooperation for growth are essential ingredients of a sustainable migration management policy on the EU’s southern borders. In addition asylum management could benefit from EU level humanitarian visas issued at countries of origin.
Notes
1 Human Rights Watch, “Spain/Morocco: Protect Migrants, Asylum Seekers”, 24 March 2014, http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/24/spainmorocco-protect-migrants-asylum-seekers.
2 “Hundreds of migrants try to enter Spain”, Reliefweb, 12 August 2014, http://reliefweb.int/report/spain/hundreds-migrants-try-enter-spain.
3 Human Rights Watch, “Libya: Stemming the Flow”, 2 September 2006, http://m.hrw.org/reports/2006/libya0906/libya0906webwcover.pdf.
4 “Italy Copes with over 40,000 Boat Arrivals in 2014”, IOM, 3 June 2014, http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/news-and-views/press-briefing-notes/pbn-2014/pbn-listing/italy-copes-with-over-40000-boat.html.
5 A boat, which had set off from Libya heading for Italy with more than 500 people on board, mainly from Eritrea and Somalia, caught fire and sank approximately one km from the shore of Lampedusa. At least 300 passengers perished at sea.
6 European Council, Conclusions of the European Council, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/139197.pdf. See also European Commission, On the Work of the Task Force Mediterranean, 2, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:52013DC0869.
7 Vogel, Size and Development of Irregular Migration, 4, http://clandestino.eliamep.gr/comparative-policy-briefs.
8 Joppke, “Why Liberal States Accept Unwanted Immigration”.
9 Walters, “Imagined Migration World”, 73, http://williamwalters.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2010-Imagined-Migration-World.pdf.
10 Schneider, Practical Measures for Reducing Irregular Migration, http://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/EN/Publikationen/EMN/Nationale-Studien-WorkingPaper/emn-wp41-irregular-migration.html.
11 Cassarino, Readmission Policy in the European Union, 38, http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/14957.
12 Bigo points out that the securitisation of migration is to a large extent the result of the quest of internal security agencies (national police forces, border guards, customs services, etc) to find internal enemies beyond their borders, in what have been termed as networks of crime (migrants, asylum seekers, diasporas, etc). Bigo, “When Two Become One”, 171.
13 Huysmans, “International Politics of Insecurity”.
14 Levy, “The European Union after 9/11”, https://www.gold.ac.uk/media/1.%20govtandoppLevy.pdf; Neal, “Securitization and Risk at the EU Border”.
15 Huysmans, “The Securitization of Migration”, 755, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5965.00263. See also Walters, “Imagined Migration World”.
16 Walters points out that the EU’s irregular migration policy was legitimised in that it would mitigate unauthorised entry and residence but also complement the “European framework for the wider governance of all forms of migratory movement”. Walters, Ibid., 76.
17 Wolff, “EU Integrated Border Management”, 24, http://www.cidob.org/en/content/download/24457/278620/file/m_shaping_normative.pdf.
18 The Lisbon Treaty introduced a series of significant changes in the field of migration and asylum, the most important being that the majority of border control policies are now governed by “ordinary legislative procedure”, which means that they have to be co-decided by the Council and the European Parliament.
19 GAMM has “continued to serve as the overarching framework of the EU’s external migration and asylum policy. The role of the common visa policy to spur growth in the EU has also been in focus since 2012”. European Commission, 4th Annual Report on Immigration and Asylum, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:52013DC0422.
20 The EU has so far signed Mobility Partnerships with Armenia, Cape Verde, Georgia and Moldova and recently with Azerbaijan, Tunisia and Morocco.
21 Carrera et al., EU Migration Policy, 10, http://www.ceps.eu/node/7215.
22 Triandafyllidou and Dimitriadi, “Migration Management at the Outposts”.
23 OHCHR, EU Border Management, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ProtectingRightsOfMigrants.aspx.
24 Council of the European Union, Presidency Conclusions, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/72638.pdf.
25 Triandafyllidou and Ilies, “EU Irregular Migration Policies”; and Carrera et al., “EU Migration Policy”.
26 Fargues and Fandrich, Migration after the Arab Spring, http://hdl.handle.net/1814/23504.
27 See the European Commission DG Home Affairs webpage on Irregular Immigration, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/immigration/irregular-immigration/index_en.htm.
28 Bigo and Jeandesboz, Border Security, Technology, http://www.ceps.eu/node/2669.
29 Jeandesboz, “Beyond the Tartar Steppe”.
30 European Commission, Towards Integrated Management, 4, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:52002DC0233.
31 See also Triandafyllidou and Ilies, “EU Irregular Migration Policies”; Triandafyllidou and Dimitriadi, “Migration Management at the Outposts”.
32 LISA, the EU agency for the management of large-scale IT systems, including SIS II, VIS and EURODAC, began operation on 1 December 2012.
33 See the so-called “Frontex Regulation”: Regulation (EC) No 2007/2004 of 26 October 2004 establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:32004R2007.
34 Operation Hera in the Canary Islands, Hermes in Italy, Poseidon in Greece.
35 RABIT was deployed for the first time along the Greek-Turkish land border, in 2010. See Carrera and Guild, ‘Joint Operation RABIT 2010’, http://www.ceps.eu/node/3920.
36 See Regulation (EU) No 1168/2011 of 25 October 2011 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2007/2004 establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:32011R1168.
37 Carrera et al., EU Migration Policy.
38 Carrera, “Frontex and EU’s Border Management”.
39 The EU has already done something like this in Libya. On 22 May 2013, the Council of the European Union gave the green light to the EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) in Libya. EUBAM Libya’s initial mandate is for two years, with an annual budget of around 30 million euros. The purpose is to support the Libyan authorities in developing border management and security at the country’s land, sea and air borders.
40 Perkowski, A Normative Assessment, http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/a-normative-assessment-of-the-aims-and-practices-of-the-european-border-management-agency-frontex.
41 Human Rights Watch, “Greece: End Inhumane Detention Conditions for Migrants”, 6 December 2010, http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/12/06/greece-end-inhumane-detention-conditions-migrants; and “Unwelcome Guests. Greek Police Abuses of Migrants in Athens”, June 2013, http://www.hrw.org/node/116082.
42 Amnesty International, “Frontier Europe: Human Rights Abuses on Greece’s Border with Turkey”, 19 July 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR25/008/2013/en.
43 Perkowski, A Normative Assessment.
44 For example, in June 2010, the European Parliament called on the member states that deport migrants to Libya in cooperation with Frontex (referring primarily to Italy) to cease returns immediately since migrants were not guaranteed that their safety and human rights would be respected and protected. European Parliament, Resolution on Executions in Libya, P7_TA(2010)0246, 17 June 2010, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2010-0246&language=EN.
45 Regulation (EU) No 1052/2013 of 22 October 2013 establishing the European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur), http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:32013R1052.
46 See Jeandesboz, “Beyond the Tartar Steppe”.
47 Ceccorulli, Security Framings and Governance Patterns.
48 Jeandesboz, “Beyond the Tartar Steppe”, 9.
49 Quoted in S. Erlanger, “On Journey, Young Tunisians Need Only a Final Destination”, The New York Times, 19 April 2011, http://nyti.ms/1oMhtHe. See also Triandafyllidou and Dimitriadi, “Migration Management at the Outposts”.
50 For an analysis of the new Schengen Borders Code, see Y. Pascouau, The Schengen Governance Package, http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epc.eu%2Fdocuments%2Fuploads%2Fpub_4011_schengen_governance_package.pdf&ei=urbtU8WtHqeV0QWyuIHQBQ&usg=AFQjCNGUbke2vNkopGcNrtp3EE2O-tA6QA&bvm=bv.73231344,d.d2k&cad=rja.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anna Triandafyllidou
Anna Triandafyllidou is Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), European University Institute, Florence, and Director of the Cultural Pluralism Research Area of the RSCAS’s Global Governance Programme. Email: [email protected].
Angeliki Dimitriadi
Angeliki Dimitriadi is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens. Email: [email protected]