The EU's new migration tool in Africa

The European Commission is preparing a 12-country regional plan to address migration to Europe via the Atlantic and western Mediterranean, according to a document seen by Devex. An outline of the "Team Europe Initiative for a Comprehensive Migration Approach in the Maghreb, Sahel and West African Countries in the Atlantic / Western Mediterranean Route" was discussed with officials from European Union states at a meeting in early October. “The Initiative will mainly focus on migration management and migration governance actions,” according to the document, which adds that “the Western Mediterranean/Atlantic routes have seen a substantive rise in flows in the last years and the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in origin and transit countries and the lasting deteriorating security situation in the Sahel make the prospects worrisome.” “The way it may play out is also that EU [states] will rally behind this approach with some money ... while the EU is putting most financial means behind the Team Europe Approach.” --— Anna Knoll, head of the migration and mobility program, European Centre for Development Policy Management The plan notes that the EU benefits from migration as it helps meet labor needs and combat demographic decline. The proposed initiative includes five pillars: legal migration and mobility; protection and asylum; prevention of irregular migration, migrant smuggling, and trafficking in human beings; return, readmission, and reintegration; and migration and development. It would encompass Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, while other countries of origin or transit could be added at a later stage. Anna Knoll, head of the migration and mobility program at the think tank European Centre for Development Policy Management, told Devex the initiative is one of three “whole-of-route” approaches spanning different countries now being planned under the commission’s 2021 to 2027 development programming, along with the central Mediterranean route and the Afghan regional displacement crisis. Its success will depend on whether it does more than address European migration concerns, Knoll wrote by email, as well as whether it integrates true sustainable development work, and whether different EU states manage to pursue joint strategic interests. Tomas Tobé, the center-right Swedish member of European Parliament who chairs the Parliament’s development committee, appeared to welcome the plan Thursday, emailing Devex that “More [has] to be done to address the drivers of migration … Asylum in Europe cannot become the permanent solution to injustices.” ‘Tricky’ Team Europe “Team Europe initiatives” are the latest attempt by the commission to harmonize its development work with those of EU member states’. Efforts at joint programming are not new, though commission officials say that this time, rather than agreeing to work in different sectors, TEIs will see the commission and member states focusing on the same area to boost their joint impact and visibility. EU delegations around the world were instructed to propose country-level TEIs as part of the ongoing programming process for the next seven years. For regional-level TEIs, the commission document states that at least three recipient countries should be targeted, and at least four European donors should contribute funding. The commission’s Team Europe push has been met with some skepticism by civil society, the European Parliament and officials from EU countries, all of whom are concerned about a lack of transparency in how the initiatives are planned and approved. TEIs are “tricky,” one EU member state official told Devex this week. “There are too many. Only those involved [in each one] know what it is about.” For the Atlantic/west Mediterranean migration initiative, the commission document explains that there will be “a specific structured coordination mechanism to ensure a whole-of-route approach, a development perspective, as well as regional coherence of the respective routes under the TEI.” However, the EU member state official said that by working outside the established method for approving EU development work through member states in the Council of the EU, the new initiative was in an institutional “grey zone.” Wrong assumptions Cristina Rovira from Oxfam Intermón in Spain told Devex by email that Spanish civil society had barely been involved in shaping the migration plan, apart from “sporadic updates.” And she wrote that it started “from assumptions that academia and practitioners have shown to be wrong … that promoting development programmes in areas considered as countries of origin will effectively prevent and deter human mobility.” The spike in people trying to reach Europe around 2015 prompted the bloc’s leaders to emphasize the need for development policy to tackle the “root causes” of migration, as they created the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. However, researchers such as Michael Clemens have found that as people become more prosperous they often become more willing to move. The trust fund is not continuing under the EU’s 2021-2027 development budget, which aims to simplify funding streams. However, by including the prospect of providing nonlethal equipment for local security forces and cooperation on border management, the migration TEI appears designed to continue providing similar actions to those already being carried out by the commission and EU member states under the trust fund. Knoll wrote: “The way it may play out is also that EU [states] will rally behind this approach with some money ... while the EU is putting most financial means behind the Team Europe Approach. We have seen similar dynamics in the EUTF.” The trust fund for Africa amounted to more than €5 billion ($5.82 billion) and almost 88% of contributions came from the EU, rather than its member states. For regional TEIs, in sub-Saharan Africa and for sectors where sufficient EU donors are present, the contribution from the commission through the EU budget should not exceed 50% of the total, the document states. In other regions, the commission’s contribution should not be above 70% of the total. Asked about the status of the migration initiative Thursday, a commission spokesperson emailed Devex, “we do not comment on leaked documents.”