EU Cooperation Challenges in External Migration Policy

Abstract

International cooperation on migration is a major challenge for sovereign States in bilateral relations: the inherent contrasting interests between receiving and sending countries put obstacles in the way of bilateral satisfaction and require extra political involvement to overcome any differences. The same cooperation when developed by a supranational organization like the EU1 is even more challenging, as bilateral tensions are topped off with tensions between the national and supranational level. The EU has developed its Global Approach to Migration as a possible way to establish comprehensive cooperation with non-EU partners from the East and the South on a whole range of migration issues, including the fight against irregular migration, legal migration, migration and development, and asylum policy. The approach also had a coordinating effect for internal EU policymaking. There have been, however, four main challenges hampering this policy domain: 1) the limited ability of the EU to define its migration policy with its 27 sovereign States; 2) tensions between the national and supranational level in the EU as regards international cooperation on migration; 3) the diverging interests and priorities of sending regions and/or partner countries; 4) the limited implementation capacities of the EU and its Member States, as well as of partner countries. The prospects for cooperation depend on the ability of the EU to overcome these challenges. Focus should be on the vital areas of action, addressing the non-securitarian issues of migration policy and assuring its thematic diversity; strengthening the EU’s international standing; and introducing coherent monitoring of policy implementation.