EXTERNALIZING MIGRATION MANAGEMENT - The European Union’s Externalization of Migration Management to Niger and Its Challenges for Accountability

Abstract

In response to increased irregular migration to EU territory in 2015, the EU has introduced a range of different policies. Through cooperation with third countries, the EU has managed to externalize migration management to foreign territory, leaving implementation of projects to other actors than the EU itself, raising questions of accountability. This thesis aims to explore how the policy formulation of the EU about externalization of migration management and its reporting reveal how accountability is understood after 2015. Because the EU, represented by the Commission in this thesis, has the power to shape its under own understandings in its policy formulation, a thematic qualitative analysis serves to explore how language is used in the policies and what it reveals about the Commission’s understanding of accountability. Using the theoretical framework of critical humanitarianism, this enables to shed light on how the Commission presents itself as an actor that is caring for migrants on the one hand but at the same time controlling human mobility through migration management in third countries on the other. This thesis demonstrates that the Commission’s understanding of accountability mostly relates to issues of transparency and information and control mechanisms of unelected EU institutions. More importantly, the analysis illustrates that the importance of the Parliament is left aside, strategically circumventing the involvement of a democratically elected forum. Similarly, marginal references to legal aspects indicate challenges to hold the Commission on the European level accountable.