Both pre- and post-Arab Spring, the management of migration flows from the EU’s neighbourhood into Europe has been a top priority of the EU, remaining so to this day. Increasingly synonymous with ‘security’, mobility also finds itself central to the internal and external policy outlooks of all EU Member States (MS). Given the centrality of migration to the EU’s internal and external governance of security therefore, the EU’s approach to migration in the context of the ENP has often been debated heavily by scholars - confounded by further work concerned with the EU’s management of mobility and migration itself more generally (Krahmann, 2003; Ceccorulli, 2009). Despite a number of critiques and shortcomings emphasised by scholars in the wake of the Arab Spring, the EU’s post-Arab Spring reform of the policy, as will be shown, has again not brought about any fundamental, substantive changes in how the EU, through the ENP, perceives and tackles migration in the Mediterranean region (Noutcheva, 2014). Indeed, predominantly ‘negligible’ instances of change have in some cases served to compound common limitations and shortcomings associated with EU mobility management further. In this respect, the underlying logic of mobility/migration management has primarily remained tied to one of security and thus, the predominant focus of the EU when it comes to the management of mobility and migration through the ENP has remained indebted to stricter border restrictions and the confronting of illegal/irregular migration flows in an increasingly repressive manner.
Pre-Arab Spring, the EU’s interest in issues of mobility and migration by way of the ENP was clear. A large influx of migrants in the Canary Islands, Cyprus, Greece, Lampedusa and Malta during 2006-2007 confirmed as much - the EU moving to restate the importance of managing external migration flows for both itself and its neighbouring countries in the wake of EU enlargement (Barbé & Johansson-Nogués, 2008; 86). The EU’s approach was therefore carefully considered in a ‘positive-sum’ fashion - much like that of democracy promotion - whereby the ‘value-added’ in managing migration was perceived to exist for both parties engaged within the ENP process. Early ENP Action Plans therefore, tended to deal with migration primarily in three broad categories; (i) the EU, by offering technical and financial assistance, aimed to improve target countries’ management of migration through enhancing their own border control capacities, (ii) the
EU pledged to support reform of the judiciary, police training and the reduction of corruption related to migration within ENP partner countries and (iii), the ENP was to include the possibility of liberalising the Schengen Visa regime and thus further facilitate travel to the EU from neighbouring countries legally (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués, 2008; 86). These measures, in the words of the ‘External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy’ Commissioner at the time, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, represented
“a comprehensive and balanced approach, managing legal immigration while preventing and fighting illegal immigration, smuggling and trafficking in human beings” (Ferrero- Waldner, 2005).Rhetorically, EU-led migration policy was often styled as being ‘soft’ and ‘respectful’ of the sovereignty of ENP partners - a shared and consensual, mutually- beneficial partnership if you like - whereby the support of migratory management transformation by the EU was meant to be less about imposing the EU’s particular ‘migration model’ from the outside and, instead, more focused on indigenous efforts within ENP target countries themselves. With regards to actual implementation therefore, mobility and migration management, through the ENP, was primarily financially enacted through both the ENPI and MEDA programmes, directly targeted towards ENP target countries themselves.
In practice however, the EU’s record on mobility management by way of the ENP prior to the Arab Spring was at best mixed and, at its worst, was even considered to have been directly contradicting some of the ENP’s other aims and goals, such as democracy promotion, through its insistence on a ‘security-first’ logic with respect to mobility. One such point of contention, this time originating from certain ENP partners’ point of view, was that certain facets of ENP migration management prior to the Arab Spring (border control specifically) were inherently ‘unfair’ and were again largely tied to the EU’s security logic towards the MENA region as a whole. The EU’s promise of facilitating visas for example was only negotiated with partners conditional upon their singing of a controversial EU-dictated readmission agreement. Not only did this mean that ENP partners had to commit to taking back nationals whom found themselves in an unregulated situation within the EU, but it also made clear that they would have to account for all ‘transitioning’ individuals originating in countries with which the EU had no such agreement (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués, 2008; 90). Partner countries concerned
about the probable lack of income that would be thus received from remittances, and overwhelmed by the demand that they must bear responsibility for individuals whom only used their country for transit to the EU (nationals of that particular country or not), left many unsure about the intentions of the EU and brought elements of the wider ENP migrationary approach to stand-still. In this sense, the ENP did little to share the cost of irregular migration between itself and its partners, leading to accusations that pre-Arab Spring, the management of migration tended to be heavily biased in favour of the EU. A quote from the European Parliament itself aptly summarises such a perspective - urging the Union as whole to reform its approach to migration by taking “firm measures, accompanied by an information campaign, to explain… the new ENP, so as to erase the image of a fearful Europe, more concerned with its own security and combatting immigration that with the sustainable development that is both expected and necessary”
(EP 2011/2157, 2011). Clearly, therefore, the management of migration prior to the Arab Spring, despite its ‘collective’ rhetoric and fair and equitable implementation schemes on the face of it, in fact more accurately represented the Union’s own concerns of security
vis-à-vis border management and the containing of illegal migration at its source. This was also a trend that continued immediately after the revolts themselves broke out in 2011.
Given the shockwaves created by the Arab Spring revolts - not least in terms of increasing the actual levels of migration and refugees to Europe from the region - and the oft-stated shortcomings mentioned by critical observers above - it is perhaps surprising that the Union’s approach to migration in fact experienced little change during and immediately after the revolts in the MENA region broke out. The EU’s immediate, short- term response after the protests therefore was predominantly reactionary - largely centered around the control and containment of migrants (including refugees and asylum seekers) in the southern Mediterranean, as had been the predominant de facto approach previously (Carrera et al, 2012; 4). Emphasis was again placed upon increasingly restrictive measures of surveillance and border checks, by way of involvement of Frontex, the EU’s new-founded border agency (Noutcheva, 2014; 25). Moreover,
intensified pressure from the EU was also placed on the newly emergent governments in North Africa to deal with illegal migration at its source (Dandashly, 2014). Following the oft-criticised lead of EU MS in this regard, the EU sought to secure cooperation on limiting migration in return for aid, despite such an arrangement’s dubious compliance with international law (Carrera et al, 2012; 6). In April 2011 for example, the EU made it clear to Tunisia that its offer of around €400 million of aid to support the country’s democratic transition post-Arab Spring would rely first-and-foremost on the success of Tunisia’s own actions to counter irregular and illegal forms of migration itself (Carrera,
et al, 2012; 6). The EU also unprecedentedly suspended the freedom of movement for migrants within Europe in certain cases, justified on the basis of the great external migratory pressure placed upon certain EU MS during and immediately after the Arab Spring. Spurred on by a dispute between France and Italy over the reformation of the Schengen Borders Code (SBC) in this regard - the EU created a ‘Schengen Governance Package’, effectively making it easier for EU MS to reinstate their own tight border controls when confronted with large numbers of migrants, in so far as they presented a threat to public policy and internal security (Carrera et al, 2012; 7). Such a move was again clearly a strong indication of the EU’s continued security logic towards issues of mobility and migration following the Arab Spring. Initially therefore, it can be postulated that the EU opted for a series of measures aimed at minimising the impact of the Arab Spring in terms of its own perceived ‘negative externalities’ of the phenomenon. Clearly, the approach adopted by way of the ENP, while somewhat intensified, was not too dissimilar from the EU’s more general approach towards migration in the region anyway - typically characterised by controlling external borders and countering illegal forms of migration. The increased intensity of such a position however did begin to highlight a number of limitations with the ENP’s migration approach more generally; not only were the limits of the EU’s ‘solidarity’ with the people and new regimes in North Africa greatly exposed - by way of the EU’s pursual of a conflicting policy of providing humanitarian assistance for individuals within the southern Mediterranean on one hand - while ensuring that movement towards a better life in Europe was restricted on the other - the rather harsh, reactionary response of the EU to the Arab Spring emphasised further a number of common problems relating to the organisation and management of sensitive policy/issue areas such as migration. Such concerns were clearly pressing for the Union
even at an early stage of post-Arab Spring policy development but, more specifically, were in fact tied more closely to the EU’s medium- and long-term responses to mobility and migration management more generally in the post-Arab Spring era.
In the medium- to longer-term, congruent to the EU’s drive to reform the ENP as a whole, a number of new ‘strategic’ programmes to deal with mobility and migration post- Arab Spring were launched, the most significant of which was the ‘Dialogue on Migration, Mobility and Security (DMMS). Constituting perhaps the greatest ‘change’ to ENP mobility management policy in the wake of the Arab Spring (Noutcheva, 2014), from the outset, the DMMS was primarily created to further facilitate capacity building initiatives within ENP target countries themselves seeking to deal with mobility and migration. Furthermore, it sought to address a number of the shortcomings discussed above, the European Commission (COM 292 final, 2011) stating that, “the need to address this challenge and evolving situation should not lead to a short-term approach limited to border control without taking account of the long-term issues. Dialogue and cooperation with countries of origin and transit of these migrants is essential. Such mutually collaboration needs to be built on security and good governance for the establishment of mutually beneficial policies in the field of illegal migration”. Clearly then, the EU sought to move beyond its initial ‘reactionary-response’ phase practiced in the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, further taking long-standing criticisms of its approach to mobility and migration into account. Indeed, the reframing of the EU’s conventional approach towards migration in this regard is closely linked to the post-Arab Spring review of the ENP and adoption of the PfDSP more generally - in both of which mobility has been identified as a key, fundamental priority for the Union and its partners (Carrera et al, 2012; 9). On top of a new overarching strategy for managing migration through the ENP, ‘Mobility Partnerships’ were also created, representing the primary EU instrument for achieving the wider aims of the DMMS. First offered to a small group of ENP countries as a means to provide for the adequately managed movement of persons between the Mediterranean and the EU in the wake of the Arab Spring, it was also hoped that Mobility Partnerships could help the EU to move beyond its reactionary response over time, institutionalising further cooperative relations in the field of migration management between itself and ENP target countries (Carrera et al, 2012; 9). Thus,
forming the bedrock of EU ‘change’ to mobility and migration management after the Arab Spring, to what extent do these strategic and instrumental changes (see Table 6) amount to the ‘substantive change’ envisaged by the Union with respect to its wider reformation of the ENP after the revolts?
Table 6 - ENP Mobility and Migration ‘developments’ post-Arab Spring
Strategic + Dialogue on Migration, Mobility and
Security
Instrumental + Mobility Partnerships
Strategic. Simply put, much like the case of democracy promotion assessed above, the answer is again unfavourable with respect to an assessment of the real, pertinent and ‘substantive’ changes made to mobility and migration management strategically post- Arab Spring. With regards to the DMMS therefore, despite lofty EU-rhetoric post-Arab Spring to the contrary, the dialogue itself remains primarily focused on the strengthening of migration management and of border controls, in much the same way as the EU’s approach to mobility and migration more generally pre-Arab Spring (Carrera et al, 2012; 9). Meeting in 2011 for example, Justice and Home Affairs Ministers concluded that,
“The dialogue in the first instance should focus on the identification and promotion of measures which can contribute in a concrete and effective way to the prevention of illegal migration” and only then subsequently “could explore the possibilities for facilitating people-to-people contacts using instruments such as mobility partnerships” (COM 292 final, 2011). As Carrera et al (2012; 9) thus stated; the updated dialogue of EU/ENP mobility management falls short of constituting a “dynamic mobility policy aimed at supporting burgeoning democratisation efforts in North Africa”. It goes without saying therefore that the DMMS furthers the EU’s security logic with respect to mobility and migration - indeed, the clue even being in the policy element’s name this time round.
Instrumental. A similarly bleak assessment can also be made of Mobility Partnerships in an instrumental sense following the EU’s reform of the ENP post-Arab Spring in terms of their substantiveness. Although championed by some as a means for the EU to shift its overriding focus from one of security and border management controls to more open and
equitable mobility channels for ENP partners, initial experiences of the first waves of enacted mobility partnerships to date, do not appear to provide any evidence of such a shift in focus compared to that of pre-Arab Spring thus far. They too can therefore be considered a change yes, but not a ‘substantive’ one as envisaged by the EU post-Arab Spring. Carrera et al (2012; 11) for example, find that currently, mobility partnerships tend to have an overemphasis on border management reform, as a pre-condition for labour migration opportunities, of which there are actually very few. Furthermore, in some cases, the mobility and development priorities set out in mobility partnership declarations between the EU and ENP target countries have tended to either renew existing policies and approaches or have only a very limited reach, scope and scale - continuity then certainly trumping change once again in this instance. Finally, much like before the Arab Spring, mobility partnerships have also been criticised as constituting just yet another vehicle for the EU in promoting its highly controversial readmission agreements with third countries - typically characterised by a relationship of inequality between the EU and ENP target countries. All in all, mobility partnerships at this early stage appear wholly tied to the EU’s traditional mobility and migration logic; readmission, border controls and the countering of irregular forms of migration remain central, despite the discourse of development, partnership and mobility promoted by the Union post-Arab Spring. In this sense, the EU cannot be said to have substantively altered its traditional policy goals with respect to mobility and migration management. More specifically, one can also question the actual possibilities for ‘mobility’ set out in the DMMS and those provided for through the Mobility Partnerships themselves - raising related questions not solely born out of issues with the EU’s strong security logic but still relevant to any assessment of substantive change. Firstly, the inclusion of projects offering labour migration for ENP target country nationals is “entirely dependent on the willingness of individual member states to volunteer for such schemes” (Carrera et al, 2012; 12). To date, there appears to be little enthusiasm in this regard from participating ENP member states, again, as in the case of democracy promotion, raising a question over the nature of the incentives offered by the EU to ENP target countries both pre- and post-Arab Spring more generally. Secondly, and relatedly, the nature of the mobility offered through the DMMS and mobility partnerships tends to be “restricted, non-
permanent and highly conditional” (Carrera et al, 2012; 13). For example, not only is the term ‘mobility’ preferred to ‘migration’ throughout the Dialogue (clearly holding connotations of non-permanent residence rather than long-term labour motivated resettlement within Europe), the mobility of third-country nationals is perceived by the EU as ‘strategically’ important only in so much as individuals are members of the following categories; “short term visitors, tourists, students, researchers, business people or those visiting family members” (COM 292 final, 2011). In this manner, no new, concrete channels for prospective, long-term workers seeking a move to the EU have been envisaged by the Union; instead, possibilities for labour migration remain highly provisional; “Depending on the actual possibilities and needs of the EU MS interested in actively participating in the Mobility Partnerships and of their respective labour markets, and taking into account their right to determine the volumes of economic migrants to be admitted, the Mobility Partnerships could also encompass specific schemes for facilitating labour migration between interested member states and the Southern Mediterranean countries” (COM 292 final, 2011).
The EU’s approach to mobility and migration management post-Arab Spring, has therefore been one more synonymous with continuity than with substantive change. Despite the adoption of a new strategy towards the issue - focusing on overcoming limitations with the EU’s approach to mobility and addressing civil society actors in ENP target countries for example - a strong security logic has prevailed, wholly undermining these noteworthy attempts at policy change. Additionally, it is unclear if the EU’s continued insistence that mobility and migration are part and parcel of its ‘dialogue’ with ENP target countries, really is as equitable as such a statement makes out. Furthermore,