Leonie Jegen
PhD Candidate at the University of Amsterdam, AISSR. Researching migrant smuggling governance in Senegal.
Supervisors: Polly Pallister-Wilkins and Darshan Vigneswaran
Supervisors: Polly Pallister-Wilkins and Darshan Vigneswaran
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•Improving cooperation on the return and readmission of West African migrants has been central for the EU in recent years, yet return numbers remain low.
•In West Africa, the issue of return, and in particular forced return, remains highly sensitive. Cooperating with EU member states on forced return may hurt the domestic legitimacy of governments in countries like the Gambia, Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal.
•While cooperation on return may help to attract development funds, governments and citizens fear a loss of remittances in the case of large-scale returns.
•Migration cooperation with the EU has led to competition and conflicts over mandates between government institutions and reduced local ownership of migration governance.
•Better cooperation on return depends on the EU expanding opportunities for legal migration to Europe, as highlighted by the Valetta action plan. Otherwise, cooperation would remain biased toward restrictive policies, which will only become more contested in the long run.
This policy brief draws upon a series of expert meetings and interviews carried out within the framework of the The Political Economy of West African Migration Governance (WAMiG) project. The project explores how migration governance instruments and institutions are made and implemented, the stakes and stake holders involved or excluded and the societal discourse that surrounds these interests. The qualitative study focuses on four case studies – the Gambia, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. WAMiG is conducted by the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute as part of the Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration (MEDAM).
Papers
•Improving cooperation on the return and readmission of West African migrants has been central for the EU in recent years, yet return numbers remain low.
•In West Africa, the issue of return, and in particular forced return, remains highly sensitive. Cooperating with EU member states on forced return may hurt the domestic legitimacy of governments in countries like the Gambia, Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal.
•While cooperation on return may help to attract development funds, governments and citizens fear a loss of remittances in the case of large-scale returns.
•Migration cooperation with the EU has led to competition and conflicts over mandates between government institutions and reduced local ownership of migration governance.
•Better cooperation on return depends on the EU expanding opportunities for legal migration to Europe, as highlighted by the Valetta action plan. Otherwise, cooperation would remain biased toward restrictive policies, which will only become more contested in the long run.
This policy brief draws upon a series of expert meetings and interviews carried out within the framework of the The Political Economy of West African Migration Governance (WAMiG) project. The project explores how migration governance instruments and institutions are made and implemented, the stakes and stake holders involved or excluded and the societal discourse that surrounds these interests. The qualitative study focuses on four case studies – the Gambia, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. WAMiG is conducted by the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute as part of the Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration (MEDAM).