The Externalization of EU Borders’ Control: Political, Economic, and Humanitarian Concerns

Since 2014, 28.893 migrants have died or have gone missing, over 3.000 in 2023 alone, and these numbers have not been decreasing since 2020 (IOM, 2024). In recent years, the number of externalised EU migration policies has been increasing sharply as a response to the increased migration flows.

The need for external approaches of the EU on the topic of migration originates from the lack of domestic border controls while managing migration during the post-communist period. The increased numbers of migrants flowing into the EU, combined with the road to the Schengen Area, increased the need for the Member States to start compensating for their border vulnerability. Two strategies flowed out of this, one being ‘externalisation’ and the other being ‘prevention’. The main components of externalisation are the outsourcing of migration control instruments to non-EU countries and provisions for returning illegal migrants to other countries.

Scholars argue that the process of Europeanizing migration policies has been nurturing the concept of seeing migration through a security lens, which is framing migration as a ‘meta-issue’. This securitization connects migration policy to cultural diversity, the distribution of social entitlements, and visa and asylum policies, which fosters ideas of cultural homogeneity and welfare chauvinism. The political landscape on migration policies has been politicising migration in a negative way, painting them as an illegitimate presence or even criminals. This process of securitization creates a political landscape where it is acceptable to implement inhumane externalisation policies, instead of receiving and integrating migrants.

Political concerns

To explain the political implications of externalising EU borders, we make use of the case of the EU-Italian cooperation with Libya. The concept of migration diplomacy can be viewed as a ‘cooperative game’, where outsourcing migration control instruments to third countries can benefit both the EU’s objective, being the reduction of illegal immigration, and the third country's objective. In the case of EU-Italian cooperation with Libya, it is supposed to give Libya more sovereignty and help them battle illegal smuggling. Securitizing national borders has also been seen as a way to defend the nation’s sovereignty in Europe, for example, by Meloni and Orban. Sending migrants to third countries is a way for EU Member States to ignore the principle of refoulement, which states that refugee and human rights laws do not allow States to send migrants to places wherein their freedom or lives might be in danger. We could go further and argue that circumventing this principle shows that the externalisation of EU borders blurs Member States’ accountability, and thereby ignores a key principle of the rule of law.

Economic concerns

We go back to the case of Italy and Libya. A number of bilateral agreements were struck by both nations, including cooperative coast patrols in Libya and providing EU-funded surveillance equipment for border monitoring. On top of these bilateral agreements, Libya has received a 5-billion-euro package from Italy framed as the ‘Friendship Treaty’, and has further received millions of euros in aid directly from the European Union as well as from other Member States. On the economic implications of externalising, we want to touch back on the securitization of migration policies. Paying millions of euros in integration policies on top of the initial costs of accepting immigrants is political suicide these days. It is therefore easier to frame these costs as a way of limiting the security threat in the current political landscape, while in reality migration could actually have many economic benefits as well. However, the way some politicians these days try to argue for integration policies by convincing the public that migration can have economic benefits is in my opinion abominable. We should create policies that allow migrants to integrate because we are humans, not because of capitalism.

Humanitarian concerns

The humanitarian crisis that we are witnessing at the EU borders shows the necessity of a well-functioning migration policy, that allows migrants to cross our borders safely. What general literature fails to highlight, is that the number of migrants arriving in the Mediterranean, compared to the number of individuals who are displaced, in detention camps or conflict zones, and who are waiting for safety, is small. The cooperation between the EU and Africa is often described in humanitarian terminology as ‘development cooperation’, yet this actually describes a neo-colonial relationship with the continent.

Colonial traps in EU's migration policy

The EU tries to convince the world that its externalisation policy is dedicated to saving lives at sea, but in reality, humanitarianism in this context functions more as a colonial trap, keeping refugees detained in camps. We argue that these policies are more easily acceptable in the current political landscape where migration is being securitized, as accepting and integrating migrants in the Member States is seen by the public as a threat. On top of that, these externalisation policies are actually a large financial burden to the EU and its Member States, while also endangering their rule of law. The humanitarian reasons that are being used to defend these policies can be seen as more of a colonial trap than real development cooperation.

We should therefore call for a decolonization of EU's migration policies. The process of increasing migration integration instead of increasing external border policies that send migrants to third countries where their safety and freedom is not guaranteed is the bare minimum in order to stop the EU's migration policies from being colonial.

For more information, you can read the following literature:

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Oliveira Martins, B., & Strange, M. (2019). Rethinking EU external migration policy: contestation and critique. Global Affairs, 5(3), 195-202.

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UNCHR. (1951). Refugee context: Art. 33 of the Geneva Refugee Convention and Protocol