Outsourcing migration management: EU, power, and the external dimension of asylum and immigration policy

The present paper explores the growing link between EU’s migration priorities and its foreign policy agenda. As part of the evolving EU acquis on asylum and immigration issues, particular priority has been given to cooperation with third countries and efforts to extend EU’s possibilities for regulating migration flows well beyond its borders. As an emerging foreign policy issue, this paper asks how EU’s migration priorities have translated into policies vis-à-vis third countries, what objectives these policies serve, and how this affects EU’s overall foreign policy agenda and relations with countries of origin and transit? Using Joseph Nye’s conceptualisation of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, it is argued that EU is taking on a hegemonic position when initialising cooperation with third countries. As these countries are becoming more reluctant to take upon them the responsibility for preventing migration from reaching Europe, the EU is playing on a combination of ‘attraction’ and direct conditionality to ensure compliance. Yet, as the stakes are getting higher, ensuring cooperation may prove too costly, both financially and to EU’s self-image.