The EU Green Deal and the negotiation of Climate-Migration Linkages in EU-Mediterranean Relations

In recent years, the intersection of climate change and migration has become increasingly salient in international discourse. Yet, despite growing recognition of climate-induced mobility as a pressing issue, the European Green Deal (EGD) (the EU’s flagship climate strategy) remains largely silent on the topic, particularly in its external dimension toward Southern Mediterranean countries. This article investigates the strategic underpinnings of this silence, focusing on EU relations with Morocco and Egypt, which are two key regional partners with pronounced climate vulnerabilities and longstanding cooperation on migration. Through a mixed-methods approach combining semi-supervised topic modeling, word embedding techniques, and interpretative process tracing, the article analyzes the extent and framing of climate-migration linkages in EU policy documents, speeches, and bilateral agreements. Our findings suggest that while EU-supported platforms acknowledge the climate-migration nexus, official policies refrain from explicit integration. This discursive gap is interpreted through the lenses of policy integration theory and strategic ambiguity, highlighting how competing priorities, fragmented institutional structures, and political sensitivities contribute to omission. The research also traces how different actors shape the visibility of the nexus, emphasizing the role of advocacy coalitions and political leadership. By mapping the presence and absence of climate-migration linkages across three layers of documentation (contextual, strategic, and analytical), the article sheds light on how policy silences are constructed and maintained. It contributes to broader debates on the coherence of EU external action, the evolving nature of climate governance, and the geopolitical dynamics of EU-Mediterranean relations in an era of environmental transformation.