The EUTF Africa and the depoliticisation of migration

The European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa was created in 2015 to address crisis situations in Africa and to alleviate migratory pressures resulting from the crisis by addressing their ‘root causes’. However, the crisis in Africa was largely that constructed by the European Union, which in 2015 faced pressure from Member States to ‘do something’ about the increased migrant flows to Europe. Drawing from the (de)politicisation literature and using insights from 23 original expert interviews with actors involved in decision-making in Brussels, we examine how the political and security interests of EU actors influenced the priorities, policies and decision-making processes of the EUTF. Locating the crisis in Africa rather than in Europe itself enabled the Commission to depoliticise the ‘migration issue’ and reframe it as a technocratic problem of ‘addressing root causes’. This depoliticisation and the appeal to a crisis rationale allowed for a faster and more flexible mode of response but have also resulted in the exclusion of other actors – notably the European Parliament – from decision-making processes and (to a lesser extent) local NGOs from the implementation process. Finally, it has entailed a lasting politicisation of EU development aid, even where this is unrelated to external migration policies.