Expensive, ineffective and hypocritical: The EU’s cruel outsourced migration control

The European Union’s approach to managing migration flows depends heavily on outsourcing border control to non-member countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, region. Many far-right politicians enthusiastically back this policy: 19 nations recently signed a letter calling to go “beyond the EU’s migration pact” and further externalise migration control.

This is, theoretically, a two pronged approach: the European Union sends money to MENA governments in order to prevent the number of departures from their own borders and improve living conditions within them, thus discouraging people from leaving in the first place.

However, much of the money is funnelled instead into violent, even deadly, anti-migratory measures that take place outside the EU’s jurisdiction. These outsourced humans rights violations contravene the EU values of freedom, justice and dignity, and jeopardise its influence as a values based power.

This short-sighted, costly and inadequate strategy ultimately undermines the EU’s credibility and effectiveness on the global stage, damaging the bloc’s regional and international standing by underscoring its ingrained hypocrisy. It has also failed to reduce the number of irregular arrivals or address the root causes of the problem – instead, it has endangered, ruined and ended tens of thousands of lives.

The loss of life is staggering: according to 2023 research commissioned by the EU itself, five migrants...

Read more