"EU migration cooperation with third countries: A flawed approach"
The European Union’s current approach to cooperation with third countries on migration and development is flawed. It is flawed due to the EU doing too little to take into account the demands of developing countries, as its cooperation with Afghanistan shows. Instead its objective is to curb unwanted migration by transferring border control instruments to the countries of migrants’ origin or transit. However, while the EU approach is meant to reduce migration, it can actually achieve the opposite. A broader approach to migration governance that addresses the needs of people in these countries, enhances trade relations and development cooperation, or includes education programmes, would be more effective.
Ahmad Wali Ahmad-Yar is a PhD researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) with the Interface Demography (ID) research group. He works on the Horizon 2020 project Enhanced Migration Measures from A Multidimensional Perspective (HumMingBird). His research focuses on international migration, the integration of migrants, migration data, theoretical and data gaps in migration research, EU policies on migration, and migrant integration policies at the local level. Previously, Ahmad Wali worked for almost three years at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in the economic policy and GRID units.