New (B)Orders? The Ambivalent Impact of the EU’s Migration Partnership Framework

The European Union’s (EU) Migration Partnership Framework (MPF) was established as one response to the inflow of migrants in Europe in summer 2015. In the attempt to relieve the burden on frontline member states such as Greece or Italy the EU intensified its externalization approach that had driven EU migration policy over the past decades. In line with the European Agenda on Migration, the European Commission (EC) emphasized the need to “(...) [work] in partnership with third countries to tackle migration upstream”. Based on the experiences with the EU-Turkey agreement, the EC set out the MPF under the European Agenda on Migration. The goal of the MPF was “(...) to combine all instruments and tools available to the EU and its member states to deliver clear targets and commitments to better manage migration”. There has been a significant amount of studies dealing with EU external migration policy. However, only little attention has been given to the analysis of policy implementation and evaluation. This paper addresses this research gap in three ways. First, it will explain the EU’s externalization logic on the basis of the MPF: what is the major intent of the framework and what instruments are envisaged to achieve that? Second, the implementation of the MPF by partner countries will be assessed: what has been achieved so far, which elements of the MPF miss further progress? Third, the impact of the MPF will be analyzed with regard to the intended and unintended effects more than four years from its establishment. Those effects will be looked at from four different levels: (I) EU member states; (II) EU-third countries relations; (III) Third countries; (IV) Migrants. The analysis of the impact of the MPF will be based on the five priority countries Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali and Ethiopia. Moreover, the cases of Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya and Turkey will be dealt with given that similar compacts were signed during the same time period. The paper argues that the achievements of the migration partnerships have been limited on all levels. The MPF has failed to incentivize the cooperation that Brussels hoped for and to implement the envisaged measures, especially the concessions made by the EU to third countries. Moreover, the EU’s migration programming in partner countries has suffered from major flaws which in turn impacted on migrants’ conditions on the ground. In addition, partner countries have started to copy the EU’s externalization logic and its migration policy. The paper sheds light on the shifting relations between the EU and its member states on the one hand and the third countries on the other. While in the past decision-makers in Brussels and governments such as in Berlin, Paris or Madrid were able to substantially influence the ‘order’ of the transnational migration system from and the migration policies of non-EU countries, this asymmetric relationship seems to change. The bargaining power of third countries increases which in turn makes it difficult for the EU to properly respond to international crises pertaining to those countries.