Beyond Root Causes? The Missing Climate Links in EU Responses to Irregular Migration

The growing entanglement between climate change and human mobility has prompted the European Union to acknowledge climatic factors as key contributors to migratory pressures. Yet, despite references in the 2013 Commission Staff Working Document, the Agenda for Migration (2015), the New Pact on Migration and Asylum (2020), and the 2022 Climate Preparedness and Resilience Communication, climate considerations remain only partially integrated into EU development cooperation and migration-related interventions in countries of origin. This paper examines the role of NGOs as key implementing actors in EU-funded development and reintegration projects, analysing how climate dynamics are understood, overlooked, or inconsistently incorporated in practice. Drawing on interview-based research in Senegal and Tunisia, as well as on complementary evidence from NGO reports and project documentation, the paper identifies a set of recurrent “missing links” in EU action. These include: limited assessment of climate-related risks for project sustainability; inadequate consideration of slow-onset processes that undermine reintegration efforts; insufficient long-term monitoring; and the absence of “emergency insurance” or adaptive mechanisms to buffer climatic shocks. NGOs consistently highlight how root causes and reintegration projects—typically centred on agriculture, fishing, or small entrepreneurship—often fail when climatic stressors are not addressed or when social, cultural, and community dimensions are overlooked. The paper argues that the EU’s root-causes approach remains constrained by a narrow economic focus that insufficiently integrates climate vulnerability.