Time to govern migration together: an opportunity for Europe and Africa

The EU’s incapacity to find a bold common policy that goes beyond scant agreements based on the lowest common denominator amongst its member states, or to resist the temptation to become inward-looking and to close in on itself, is particularly evident in its approach to migration. This – especially in the wake of the so-called ‘refugee and migration crisis’ – has, in fact, been approached with a securitarian and resistant attitude, resulting in a migration policy that is unbalanced towards the main goal of curtailing arrivals and of increasing returns, that is overzealous in strengthening border controls, and that is committed to the sacrosanct fight against smugglers and traffickers, and to the attempts to tackle the so-called root causes of migration. These efforts largely outweigh the pursuit of the safe and orderly management of people’s transnational mobility.

In its second paper “Time to govern migration together: an opportunity for Europe and Africa”, FEPS Global Migration Group now advocates a few concrete policies aimed at: increasing and strengthening orderly regular migration routes; better framing relations with both African countries and African regional organisations in the field of migration management as well as development; and converging fair and non-discriminatory standards and proce- dures in EU labour markets which put people centre stage.

Read the study

Read the first paper by FEPS Global Migration Group: Prioritising people: a progressive narrative on migration