The external dimension of European Union immigration and asylum policies - redefining security in the European region

Résumé du document

In February 2003, Tony Blair proposed at the Thessaloniki Summit to create 'transit processing centres' outside the European Union (EU) frontiers in which asylum seekers would be withheld during the time their procedure was completed. Though the proposition wasn't well received at first by the other Heads of States, it was echoed a year later by the German Minister of Interior Otto Schily to create such centres in North Africa, and later by his Italian colleague Giuseppe Pisanu who indicated his wish to build such an infrastructure on Libya's territory. To understand this proposal, one must go back to the funding of the external dimension of the EU immigration and asylum policies. As the EU progressed towards the removal of internal frontiers, as symbolized by the Schengen initiative in 1985, this made it necessary to further control over the external frontiers of the EU, and to secure the territory against illegal immigration, crime, terrorism, etc. The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 expressed the will to establish a common area of liberty, security and justice in Europe. One of the main pillars at the core of this project was immigration and asylum policies. Thus, Europeanization of immigration and asylum policies became an important aspect of recent European integration. Until the Amsterdam Treaty, it consisted of an interstate cooperation and an intergovernmental policy.

Extraits

[...] Therefore state capacity in managing immigration remained questioned. Bigo identifies these policies as “illusion” policies which are implemented by public authorities only to make-believe in the effectiveness of their state measures (BIGO, 1997). Why is this the case? As from the economic crisis of the 1970s, though governments intended to limit immigration by carrying out restrictive legislation towards economic and humanitarian immigration, this paradoxically spawned a new kind of immigration, one of family grouping which replaced traditional immigration (LESTRADE, 2008). [...]

[...] This proposition was officially made at the Sevilla Summit of 2002. “Outsourcing” EU immigration and asylum policies has enabled the EU to redefine strategic partnerships in its region. The EU has made it one of its key policies, a sort of precondition to other forms of cooperation with third countries. For instance, it has developed the concept of country through the London Resolution of 1997 (CINI, 2010) to develop cooperation on immigration issues. The secure country criteria are very precise. [...]

[...] Since 2003, this marginalized country on the international scene has benefited from the EU's concern over immigration and asylum issues, especially as from the entry of Malta in the EU in 2004. A first exploratory mission was sent to Libya by the Commission in 2003 which then enabled the EU and member states to settle agreements on a bilateral or multilateral level (RODIER, 2006) with Colonel Kaddafi's regime. Libya became a key actor of the EU's strategy on immigration and asylum given the importance of this country as a transit place for migrants. [...]

[...] Legislative texts present the diverse characteristics of the external dimension of immigration and asylum policies led by the EU. According to the conclusions of the Tampere Summit, this policy is divided into four sections. two first management of migration and asylum policies- reveal the necessity of a better control over entries, whereas the two others consider the issue of migration more globally and in a less restrictive approach, acting both upstream (aid to the country of origin) and downstream (equality of treatment for non- national migrants)” (TERPAN, 2006). [...]

[...] More largely, decisions to develop the external dimension of immigration and asylum policies have created an agenda which was implemented in several steps. Therefore, “outsourcing” has enabled the EU to develop a close management over migrations and asylum requests. If the concept of “European fortress” remains debatable, we can draw a parallel with the concept of “chosen immigration policy”, as introduced by President Sarkozy during the presidential campaign of 2007. We can therefore assert that securing the frontiers of the EU has become over the years, and since the first EU decisions to remove internal frontiers on the European territory a “priority” (Thessaloniki Summit of 2003). [...]