- Introduction
Europe’s shortcomings in managing migration have been evident from the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis to the recent 2024 elections. I argue that Europe’s struggle persists because of the inherently “wicked” character of the migration crisis, especially considering issues of border security and migration weaponization. The European case is particularly unique in its common use of a mitigating “solution” to the migration crisis: third-country agreements. These agreements may come in different forms, but are generally a policy of externalization, which seeks to alleviate the problem of lax border security by deterring the influx of refugees and asylum seekers. I will conduct an evaluative policy analysis of these third-country agreements that answers two questions: First, how effective is the policy of third-country agreements in addressing the wickedness of the European migration crisis? Second, why is this policy so popular among European leaders?
Regarding the first question, my evaluation is based on two criteria: First, whether these agreements successfully achieve their primary aim of deterrence, and second, whether they adequately address the European migration crisis in the long run. I hypothesize that the policy of third-country agreements is ineffective on both grounds. These agreements, at best, deter refugees and asylum seekers aiming to enter European states only in the short run, failing to deal with its root causes. The short run-long run paradox is at play, as the policy may lead to the short run benefit of reducing the number of irregular migrants, but may exacerbate the possibility of long run failures. Even if some deterrence is achieved, the costs incurred outweigh any benefits. Furthermore, this policy propels additional wicked problems. The most significant harm of this policy is the weaponization of migration, when third-country partnerships grant the third countries disproportionate amounts of power. These partnerships are also ineffective due to hypocrisy costs from violating human rights and contradicting the liberal ideals many European states promote. However, hypocrisy costs are the least significant drawback, as other states, often guilty of similar policies, rarely impose them. The absence of condemnation is also due to strong anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, so domestic and regional actors are not concerned with states acting hypocritically if it means keeping migrants out. Rather, hypocrisy costs are primarily enforced by human rights organizations, which wield comparatively less influence than states.
For the second research question, I will employ a short run rather than a long run framework to display why the policy of third-country agreements is so popular among European leaders. I propose that European leaders are not ignorant that these agreements are only short-term solutions; in fact, this is part of the appeal of such a policy. These partnerships improve the optics of the proactiveness of states in dealing with migration challenges, accomplishing a sufficient temporary reduction in migration numbers. States are willing to bear the costs of such measures, considering that the alternative – structural reform – poses a formidable obstacle that would conflict with the short-term political motivations of leaders. Thus, leaders respond to a crisis-by-crisis approach instead of considering long-term solutions, which I posit produces an inability to address the wicked problems at play.
- The European Migration Crisis: A Wicked Problem
The framework of wicked problems was formulated by design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber by categorizing certain policy planning problems as “inherently wicked” when they embody ten characteristics.A wicked policy problem defies straightforward solutions due to its interconnectedness with other problems and a multiplicity of stakeholders with conflicting interests and values. The European migration crisis is interwoven with many wicked problems, including border security, weaponization of migration, and poverty, and concern multiple conflicting values, such as in the disagreement within the EU. The crisis is also difficult to define and mutates over time, as illustrated by the differences between Ukrainian refugees in 2024 and Syrian refugees in 2015. The European migration crisis is more than a security problem. It is a “ humanitarian crisis based in the suffering of individuals who [have] abandoned their homes; a geopolitical conflict ranging across countries and continents; a security threat for both receiving and transit countries; a potentially heavy financial burden on already overtaxed states; and the breakdown of collaboration in the network of EU member states.”
The wicked character of the European migration crisis points to the difficulty of neatly defining and solving the crisis. For example, even if push factors are weakened, it is likely that migrants will always want to enter Europe. The solution to the crisis can never be right or wrong, but good or bad. The short-run perspective of political leaders categorizes this policy as “good” – which incidentally adds to the wickedness of the problem. Rather, in this paper, I argue that the policy of third-country partnerships falls into the “bad” category of solutions. In my analysis, I will address the wicked problems of border security and the weaponization of migration.
- The Policy of Third-Country Agreements
The overarching framework of third-country agreements is that European destination countries use them as an externalization policy to deter irregular migrants.This aim is pursued by either moving migrants or shifting the responsibility of dealing with asylum claims to safe third countries. A third country is considered safe if it respects the principle of non-refoulement and treats an asylum seeker in accordance with accepted international standards, such as the Geneva Refugee Convention and Protocol.
An example of this policy’s success is seen in Spain and Morocco’s transactional migration agreement. Adamson and Greenhill define “transactional forced migration” as the process surrounding “political deals intended to facilitate and/or forestall engineered cross-border population movements, wherein the parties to the deal do not include the displaced themselves.” In the Spain-Morocco example, “Morocco is…cooperating with its neighbour Spain in efforts to stem the flow of illegal migration by sea with the attendant humanitarian concerns.” On the other hand, a negative example is the infamous EU-Turkey deal, where Greece could return new irregular migrants to Turkey in exchange for six billion euros in financial support for Turkey. The UK’s current Rwanda Plan is an even more extreme case, where “anyone entering the UK illegally – as well as those who have arrived illegally since 1 January 2022 – may now be relocated to Rwanda” even if they have never set foot in the country.
- Deterrence
To evaluate the effectiveness of the third-country agreement policy, I will first examine whether the policy fulfills its main objective: deterrence. The primary aim of the policy is to deter irregular migrants from entering European states. For example, the goal of the UK’s Rwanda Plan is to “stop the boats” and “deter dangerous and illegal journeys,” relying on the belief that asylum seekers will be deterred if faced with the risk of being sent to Rwanda. Similar logic applies to all third-country agreements, as European leaders think the threat of being sent away from a European state will deter irregular migrants from making the journey in the first place. However, this policy rarely provides a stable long-term deterrence effect. Many scholars agree that “there is limited evidence to suggest that the Rwanda deal will reduce the number of small boats crossing the Channel.”
One of the critical reasons this policy fails to provide deterrence is due to the limited enforcement of these agreements. In 2015, the number of migrants arriving in Greece was approximately 885,386. The EU-Turkey deal was intended to curb this, but only 2,140 people have been returned from Greece to Turkey after the deal. Similarly, “just 20 percent of eligible Dublin cases were actually transferred between EU Member States.” Transfer rates are low due to practical challenges, but also legal obstacles, as many European states are subject to EU and international law, which prevents them from rejecting asylum seekers.
Another reason why deterrence fails in the long run is because it underestimates asylum seekers’ persistence and determination to flee from persecution in their home countries. Gammeltoft-Hansen and Tan state: “Refugees remain resourceful despite the plight they are forced to endure, and may exhibit extraordinary resilience in their efforts to find safety and protection.” For example, in the hopes of finding safety in Europe, at least five people died in icy waters in January 2024 near northern France as they tried to traverse the English Channel to Britain. Asylum seekers have to decide whether it is best to stay home where they know they will face persecution or risk fleeing to European countries where it is not certain if they will be granted refugee status. If lethal violence is the main push factor, asylum seekers will not be easily deterred. The latter option is more appealing to asylum seekers, especially since European states have a reputation for not properly enforcing their deterrence measures. If third-country agreements do not effectively secure their main aim, then the policy does not truly ameliorate the wickedness of the European migration crisis.
Nonetheless, this policy, at times, succeeds in yielding the desired deterrence effect in the short run. Although I questioned the EU-Turkey deal in achieving deterrence, it is undeniable that the numbers, albeit not significantly, went down when viewing irregular migration flows, painting this deal as a success in European policy circles. However, third-country agreements as a policy will not provide sustainable or stable deterrence. The aspect of the EU-Turkey deal that contributed most to a decrease in flows was not safe third-country provisions, but rather interceptions of migrant boats in the Aegean by the Turkish Coast Guard. According to Turkey’s Ministry of the Interior, more than 79,000 migrants and refugees were intercepted attempting to cross into Greece during the first four months of 2019, dwarfing the number of people returned under the safe third country agreement. If deterrence is best achieved through deals that involve interceptions, this is far from a sustainable, long-term solution that appreciates the wickedness of the migration crisis.
Assuming deterrence is even effective under this policy, its efficacy is undermined if it does not adequately deal with the wicked problems interwoven in the European migration crisis. Gammeltoft-Hansen and Tan argue that “while specific deterrence measures may be successful in stemming a particular migration path in the short term…displacement of migration flows towards alternative routes often significantly, if not completely, undermine the effect over time.” They cite the EU-Turkey deal as showing that while the number of asylum seekers decreased along the Balkan route, the number of refugees and migrants using the Central Mediterranean route via Egypt or Libya dramatically increased during the same period. Even the Spain-Morocco agreement, which is also viewed as a success, does not come close to dealing with the wickedness of migration. The moment Spain stops complying with Morocco’s demands, the number of asylum seekers will instantly rise at the Spanish border. Already the EU’s deal with Tunisia does not seem to provide a stable deterrent; MEP Jeroen Lenaers of the European People’s Party has openly denounced lagging results as “arrivals continue to increase” after the conclusion of the deal. Furthermore, countries face exorbitant costs with this policy. For example, Italy had to pay Libya five billion dollars in 2007 in a negotiation regarding irregular migration. As of December 2023, the UK government has spent a total of £240 million on Rwanda.
The policy of third-country agreements by European states problematically focuses on one criterion: reducing numbers. Viewing the European migration crisis from this perspective is a gross oversimplification of the complexity of the wicked problems at play. The wicked problem of border security in the European migration crisis requires policies that move beyond the logic of deterrence. The policy of third-country agreements is a crisis-by-crisis approach rooted in short run deterrence logic, which provides patchy results at best. European states should employ a more long-term, sustainable policy that addresses the root causes of irregular migration or focusing inwards on its asylum systems. As Moreno-Lax and Pedersen state: “The short-term European goal of preventing asylum seeker flows thereby risks compromising the stated long-term goal of tackling the root causes of displacement, which is sacrificed in the altar of externalised ‘integrated border management.’” Third-country agreements, despite their presentation as a new, innovative solution, have existed for decades, but the European migration crisis still exists and is mutating, proving this deterrence-based policy does not adequately address the crisis.
- Weaponization of Migration
A key aspect of what makes wicked problems so complex is that attempted solutions “after being implemented, will generate waves of consequences over an extended – virtually an unbounded – period of time.” When evaluating a potential solution, I aim to determine if “the next day’s consequences of the solution may yield utterly undesirable repercussions which outweigh the intended advantages or the advantages accomplished hitherto.” I posit that the policy of third-country agreements in attempting to tackle the wicked problem of border security in the European migration crisis inadvertently creates another wicked problem: the weaponization of migration.
Greenhill underscores the compelling incentives for states to “create, manipulate, or simply exploit migration crises, at least in part, to influence the behavior of target states.” Coercive engineered migration is defined as “cross-border population movements that are deliberately created or manipulated by state or non-state actors in order to induce political, military and/or economic concessions from a target state or states.” Greenhill asserts that the incentives from coercive engineered migration are particularly compelling for weak states, as they lack the recourse for traditional methods of influence. Thus, the threat of using migrants as weapons can be more effective than unsuccessfully attempting to extract concessions using military means.
An infamous example of coercive engineered migration was in 2004 when the former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, demanded that the EU lift remaining sanctions and financially assist Libya in exchange for cooperation on the migration issue. Third-country agreements as a policy are ineffective in addressing the wickedness of the European migration crisis as they grant the third countries disproportionate amounts of power, which can be used to weaponize migration. In 2008, Italy and Libya signed a migration deal, in which Italy agreed to pay Libya five billion dollars to stop the flow of African migrants to Europe. This deal gave Gaddafi considerable leverage, and in 2010, he threatened to “turn Europe black” if the EU did not comply with his demands, including lifting arms sanctions and providing aid. Additionally, during the 2011 Arab Spring, Gaddafi tried to deter the EU from providing support to the rebellion by warning that the EU would be “bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe.” Despite Libya’s threats, Italy did not learn its lesson, as the two nations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Migration in 2017. Italy supports Libya by intercepting migrants at sea, establishing temporary refuge within its borders to screen asylum seekers, and repatriating individuals willing to return to their countries of origin. The EU has also financially assisted Libya, allocating 57.2 million euros for “Integrated Border and Migration Management in Libya” since 2017. Libya capitalized on Europe’s migration crisis in 2015 by negotiating this deal following the blueprint set out by the EU-Turkey deal. According to Greenhill’s theory, Libya acted as an opportunist, as it did not create the migration crisis, but carefully exploited it for its own gain. As Greenhill states, “a crisis can help level the playing field, enhance the credibility of weak actors, increase the potency of their threats, and thereby improve their coercive capabilities.”
The problem with the policy of third-country agreements is that the third countries are aware of Europe’s struggle to deal with migration, and can exploit Europe’s weaknesses by continually asking for concessions. For example, Turkey used the migration crisis as leverage to reopen talks about its EU membership. I take it as far as to say that no partnership is safe from the threat of coercive engineered migration. Even the Spain-Morocco partnership has been subject to the weaponization of migration. This was seen in 2021, as the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, who was subject to a Moroccan arrest warrant for terrorist acts, was admitted for treatment in a Spanish hospital. Morocco threatened Spain with “consequences,” which included alleviating enforcement on the border with Ceuta, allowing thousands of migrants to enter Spain. This is an example of exportive engineered migration, as Morocco engineered migration to fortify a domestic political position.
Despite the partnership between the two nations spanning decades, Morocco was undeterred from using migrants as an instrument to exert pressure on Spain. Spain and Morocco will continue to perpetuate the same pattern of engagement as they have done since the late 1990s, with Spain having to comply with Moroccan demands to curb irregular migration flows. In 2015, countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon tangentially benefitted from the post-2015 European fear, allowing them to negotiate migration deals without threatening refugee arrivals due to European trauma. Europe will continue to expect migration crises, as seen in the influx of Ukrainian refugees and predictions of increased climate change migration.
European states must decide what wicked problem they want to prioritize. The policy of third-country agreements may address the wicked problem of border security, albeit, I argue, not effectively, but it further propels and ignites the wicked problem of weaponization of migration. It is undeniable that the Spain-Morocco partnership reduced the number of irregular migrants entering Spain. However, the question is: how sustainable is this deterrence effect, and is the cost of potential weaponization worth it? I have argued that this deterrence effect is far from sustainable, and if an over-30-year partnership is susceptible to weaponization, then all partnerships are under threat. Already, Tunisia is wielding significant power against the EU; in October 2023, Tunisian president Kais Saied rejected financial support from the EU, claiming that the money “was a small amount,” and the EU “lacks respect.” The European Commission said it would disburse 127 million euros to Tunisia as part of their deal to curb illegal immigration to Europe. However, Tunisia rejected what the EU announced, saying that “the proposal conflicts with the memorandum of understanding signed in July,” which includes a pledge of 1 billion euros in aid. During the dispute between the two parties, a record number of migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa from Tunisia and North Africa. Migrant numbers have been rising in many places in Europe, but I still question if this was a coincidence and is potentially proof of Tunisia weaponizing migration against the EU. Without the third-country agreement in place, Tunisia would not have been able to weaponize migration as easily against the EU and extract financial concessions. The agreement increased Tunisia’s legitimacy at the negotiating table of migration diplomacy. Hence, threats to alter or suspend third-country agreements in response to political disagreements or disputes can create a dynamic where migration becomes a tool for exerting influence. Due to geographical limitations, Rwanda may not directly weaponize migration by sending migrants to the UK, but still has the power to cause instability in the region and potentially threaten the UK. As Greenhill’s research shows, coercers achieved at least some of their objectives in about three-quarters of the cases. In more than half the cases, coercers obtained all or most of what they sought.”
- Hypocrisy Costs
Another significant cost of third-country agreements is hypocrisy costs. Greenhill defines hypocrisy costs as “those symbolic political costs that can be imposed when there exists a real or perceived disparity between a professed commitment to liberal values and norms and demonstrated actions that contravene such a commitment.” In fact, third-country agreements create a lose-lose situation: if the European state fails to keep unwanted immigration out, it fails the policy’s original aim of deterrence. However, if European states do manage to keep migrants out, this is usually a result of illiberal means, potentially incurring hypocrisy costs. I want to ensure that I do not appear contradictory by introducing the drawback of hypocrisy costs to the policy, as even if deterrence is not effective, hypocrisy costs may still be incurred because human rights organizations have criticized European states for making deals with authoritarian leaders.
Hathaway argues that the right of states to remove refugees is conditional if the safe third country implements and respects the rights of the refugee under the Refugee Convention or any other legal instruments. I use Hathaway’s formulation of the expectations of safe third countries and the principle of non-refoulement as a baseline to determine if third-country agreements have abided by human rights expectations. For example, the EU-Turkey deal rested on the notion that Turkey is a safe third country. However, Turkey’s safe third-country status has been questioned, mainly due to the surge in Turkish state violence against minorities since 2017. Greek courts in early 2018 found that Turkey was not a safe third country, delaying the number of migrants that could be sent back. Thus, the deal was ineffective in offering sustainable deterrence and displayed hypocritical behavior. Hypocrisy costs were incurred as the Greek national court condemned state behavior for violation of human rights, thereby highlighting the discrepancy between the liberal values European states must obey by law versus the restrictive agenda leaders want to pursue. The UK’s Rwanda Plan is an even more extreme example, as the UK’s Supreme Court has declared the policy unlawful, and the European Court of Human Rights has also stopped the first scheduled flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda. The policy also goes against the principle of non-refoulement due to the severe risk asylum seekers would face if returned to their home countries. Instead of listening to the Supreme Court, the government tried to create legislation to enforce its Rwanda Plan. The UK is one of the leading proponents of liberal democracies globally, yet this policy goes against the values it espouses.
The MoU between Libya and Italy is laden with human rights abuses. Firstly, Libya is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol, which already raises legal and ethical questions about whether migrants should be sent to Libya. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed concern, stating that “it is far from clear that Italy has taken the necessary precautions to ensure that it is not sending back any bona fide refugees to Libya, which cannot be considered a safe country of asylum.” Additionally, the UNHCR stated that refugees being removed from Libya to their country of origin violates the principle of non-refoulement. Both Italy and the EU have provided technical and financial support to Libya to stop migration flows to Europe, but a UN report states the migrants that are intercepted at sea and sent back face “murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape, and other inhumane acts…in connection with their arbitrary detention.” Similarly, an International Criminal Court prosecutor stated crimes against migrants in Libya “may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.” Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have argued that the EU and Italy are thus complicit in such crimes. Hence, the Libya case study is a salient example of exposing the hypocrisy displayed by European leaders, as “the anxiety over a refugee invasion from Africa reveals the contradictions present in Europe today, where, on the one hand, the moral imperative of universal emancipation is proclaimed, but on the other, policies and practice continue the trend of refusing a safe haven to the very refugees they have helped to create.”
Hence, European states are seen as hypocritical as they advocate for human rights protection on the world stage, yet are knowingly putting migrants in a situation where their rights are violated. Even now, the EU faces scrutiny for atrocious human rights abuses in Tunisia by EU-funded security forces. Moreno-Lax and Pederson argue that “EU border externalization entrenches forms of undemocratic governance in third countries, empowering undemocratic actors, transforming their relative weight within domestic structures, and weakening democratic channels of scrutiny, accountability, and power control.” Hence, the EU may espouse democratic values and condemn authoritarianism, but concerning migration, they are more than willing to shift the responsibility to third countries and embolden their undemocratic, illiberal practices to keep migration out of Fortress Europe. As stated by Galeotti, European states are “underscoring a fundamental point, that authoritarian regimes can get not only a free pass from the EU on many issues but also lucrative assistance, so long as they continue to keep migrants out.”
Nonetheless, I argue that hypocrisy costs are an insignificant drawback of the policy relative to other impacts, including the weaponization of migration. My reasoning is based on strong anti-immigrant sentiment in the countries where this policy is used. For example, Pew Research Center data suggests that “Greeks and Italians are…the most likely to be concerned about immigration from outside the EU (84% and 76%, respectively).” I am not arguing that European states are predominantly anti-immigrant, but rather that migrant camps in European states are common, and current populist governments in Europe thrive on anti-immigrant sentiment. Migration has moved from low politics to high politics and is now at the center of many political debates. The Leave campaign during Brexit partially derives its success from exploiting xenophobic views on migration in British society. As stated by Greenhill, “popular political discourses within the EU draw upon traditional nationalistic sentiments and xenophobic assertions that current waves of migrants and refugees reduce national living standards by siphoning away social resources from ‘real’ citizens, taking employment away from more qualified applicants, bringing tensions from their home state with them and committing a disproportionate amount of crime.” It is irrelevant if migrants pose a real threat, because “if they are perceived as fundamentally threatening to their security, culture or livelihood, anxious and motivated individuals and groups will mobilize to oppose their acceptance.” Due to migrant opposition, hypocrisy costs are less of a drawback to the policy of third-country agreements as many European citizens, particularly those who border the Mediterranean, are not concerned with migrant rights or hypocritical state action, so it is less likely costs will be imposed.
Likewise, while European states are acting hypocritically, it does not mean hypocrisy costs are incurred. For the cost to be incurred, another actor needs to condemn the state for displaying hypocritical behavior. However, this policy is used globally from the US to Australia, thereby shielding European states from hypocrisy costs as many states themselves engage in the same behavior. Thus, it is usually human rights groups that condemn European states for their hypocritical behavior, which holds less weight.
- The Policy’s Popularity Among European Leaders
This paper has primarily focused on evaluating the effectiveness of third-country agreements and concluding that the policy fails to address the wicked problem of border security, in turn, creating significant drawbacks, such as the weaponization of migration and hypocrisy costs. This raises the question: why is the policy so widespread in Europe? For this section, I focus on the perspective of the European leaders who created and implemented the policy.
Democratic countries are all plagued by short-termism. Offe argues in Europe Entrapped that democratically elected governments cannot address the structural issues afflicting the EU because citizens are focused on the short-term, stating “the problem is one of ‘time inconsistency’: The implementation of promising long-term strategies is obstructed by the failure of ‘presentist’ electorates fixated on a short-term time horizon to grant them green light, unless political leaders can persuade their constituencies to adopt a more far-sighted perspective.” Politicians’ primary goal is to get elected and to stay in power, so when it comes to migration management, politicians are not incentivized to devise policies focused on a long-term perspective on migration that addresses structural and wicked problems. As Streeck puts it, “long-term solutions are not even attempted because short-term problems take priority; holes keep appearing that can only be plugged by making new holes elsewhere.” In the case of the policy of third-country agreements, the “new holes” are the wicked problem of migration weaponization.
I now examine the statements of European leaders to showcase how short-term political perspectives connect with the externalization policy of third-country agreements. Meloni states in regard to her support of the MoU with Tunisia that “work[ing] on the external dimension and stop[ping] the illegal departures of immigrants” is “the only way to seriously address the problem.” She argues that “this is what European citizens are asking of us.” European leaders recognize that citizens want solutions, and leaders believe third-country agreements can yield short-term, tangible results. Von der Leyen echoes Meloni, stating that “irregular migration is a European challenge” that “needs a European answer.” This European answer is not the dramatic structural reform of Europe’s asylum systems or improving legal pathways to residency or citizenship. Instead, externalization persists as the preferred approach and will likely remain so: “We want our agreement with Tunisia to be a template. A blueprint for the future. For partnerships with other countries in the region.” The UK is following suit, as Sunak states, “In order to fully solve this problem, we need a deterrent. We need to be able to say pretty simply and unequivocally that if you come to our country illegally, you won’t get to stay.” For European leaders, “an immediate reduction in irregular arrivals is sufficient for a deal to be considered successful, and a partner country to be cooperative and effective.” While I criticize the EU-Turkey deal and the Italy-Libya partnership, in EU circles, these deals are considered a success when merely considering a short-term number. Now Italy is facing the same problem it did in 2023, but with Tunisia rather than Libya. It is the same story with slightly different characters, as European leaders continue to use the policy of third-country agreements as a temporary fix to reduce numbers.
European leaders are not ignorant that the policy of third-country agreements is a short-term solution. Migration was a central issue in the June 2024 elections, where right-wing, anti-immigrant parties thrived. As stated previously, European citizens, particularly those who border the Mediterranean, are not open to refugees and asylum seekers, and “pundits, politicians and even some policy makers may argue that migrants who are from different religious, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds than the majority in their newly adopted homelands are a danger to societal security.” For instance, during the 2015 migration crisis, a median of 59% across 10 EU countries voiced concern about the prospect of increased terrorism, and 50% believed refugees are a burden to society because they take jobs and social benefits that would otherwise be available to citizens of each nation. Mediterranean states in particular saw refugees from Syria and Iraq as a major threat. The Pew Research Center concluded that these negative views toward refugees are tied to negative views about Muslims. This explains why Ukrainian refugees in 2022 were more welcomed than Syrians in 2015.
Refugees and asylum seekers are not always viewed as people in desperate need of protection, but as a national liability infringing on cultural identity and economic opportunities. European leaders, instead of trying to change the perceived negative image of migrants, capitalize on this xenophobic sentiment and use it to justify their externalization policies. Overwhelmingly, regardless of one’s position regarding refugees, most Europeans believed that the EU did a poor job in handling the 2015 refugee crisis. This includes a staggering 94% of Greeks and 88% of Swedes. Disapproval was high among many segments of society but exceptionally high among people with favorable views of the anti-immigrant parties in Britain (UK Independence Party), Germany (Alternative for Germany), and the Netherlands (Party for Freedom). European leaders recognize now that they should take a hard line on migration and assure the public there will not be a repeat of 2015. This is why the policy of third-country agreements is so appealing: politicians need a fast reduction in numbers, and it does not matter if it’s not sustainable. More sustainable policies addressing the problem’s wickedness, such as expanding legal channels for migrants to access the EU’s labor market, are not as politically desirable as the immediate impact of third-country agreements.
If the policy of third-country agreements is more about optics than about effectively dealing with the European migration crisis, this begs the question of whether the policy is an instrument of political theater. In his book Border Games, Andreas outlines in Chapter 1 his thesis of border enforcement as political theater. The book focuses on the US-Mexico border, but Andreas describes the border as a “political stage” that can also apply to the European context. In essence, Andreas observes that actors enforce certain policies not because of their practical effectiveness but for their symbolic significance. The policy of third-country agreements is not just to prevent migrants from coming to Europe, but also to send a message to the public about the government’s commitment to border security. If we assume the policy of third-country agreements is more about optics, then this explains why leaders care less about incurring hypocrisy costs. If this policy is “for show,” then it does not matter how effective the policy is. It only matters if the public believes their leaders are doing something about combating the migration crisis.
- Conclusion
By viewing the European migration crisis as a microcosm of a wicked problem or as a wicked problem itself, I determined that the policy of third-country agreements fails to treat the crisis as a long-term structural issue. Firstly, I evaluated the policy’s effectiveness on its intended aim of deterrence and concluded that third-country agreements do not provide a sustainable, long-term deterrent effect. The policy deters migrants only in the short run, and even then, results are patchy at best, as seen by the small number of migrants returned from Greece to Turkey under the EU-Turkey deal. Next, I assert that the policy of third-country agreements in trying to address the wicked problem of border security exacerbates the wicked problem of weaponization of migration. I argue that this is the most critical drawback of the policy, as its wickedness entails a whole host of other problems, and involves a short run-long run trade-off. Lastly, I argue that the policy incurs hypocrisy costs, a drawback that is less significant compared to the weaponization of migration due to anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe overriding human rights concerns.
For my second research question, my analysis was rooted in short run rather than long run logic, as I viewed the policy from the perspective of the leaders who implement these agreements. I concluded that the policy fulfills the short-term political aims of the politicians promoting the policy. European leaders prioritize being proactive in tackling migration crises and curbing migration flows, albeit for a limited period. The policy of third-country agreements is seen as a politically effective solution as by the time the problem resurfaces, a different political actor may be in the position of power.
Recent developments with the EU’s MoU with Tunisia show that this policy appears to be here to stay. The deal with Tunisia already is displaying issues of weaponized migration and hypocrisy costs. Moving beyond the logic of deterrence will be a challenge, but it is the only way to tackle the wickedness of the European migration crisis. Unless Europe shifts its mindset to the long run perspective, these wicked problems will only persist.
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Migrant influx in Greece, Image source from FMT | CC License, no changes made