Fear and Loathing in Europe

Yasmine Zarhloule is a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. Her research focuses on nation-state building, borders, and the politics of space in the Maghreb. She holds an M.Sc. in modern Middle Eastern studies from the University of Oxford, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Warwick, and is a D.Phil. candidate at the University of Oxford. In mid-March, Diwan interviewed her on the nature of irregular migration to Europe, and the European response, which is the topic of her recent article for Carnegie, titled “Migrants at the Gate: Europe Tries to Curb Undocumented Migration.”

Rayyan Al-Shawaf: What prompted your interest in the issue of how the European Union (EU) is enticing its Mediterranean neighbor states to thwart undocumented migration to Europe?

Yasmine Zarhloule: My interest in migration stems partly from observing the shifting dynamics around the issue in France, where legacies of colonialism and national anxieties about identity still haunt the political discourse. But it was the EU’s response to the 2015 so-called “migration crisis” that prompted my interest in the security dimension of border management. The emergence of “Fortress Europe” and the spectacle of border control—exemplified by the widely publicized image of Alan Kurdi, the young Syrian boy who drowned off the Turkish coast—revealed the extent to which EU migration policy is structured by fear and moral distancing. Having worked on borders in other contexts, I am interested in understanding how securitized responses to migration create various levels of fragmentation across geographies—in other words, at home and abroad—but also in terms of political responsibilities.

Focusing on the EU’s relationship with its southern neighbors, especially the countries of North Africa, is useful for laying out these various forms of fragmentation. It also helps us understand how power is exercised. This is true not just of bilateral agreements within the scope of the European Neighborhood Policy, for example, but also in terms of who controls mobility and how this is a shifting field, as we have seen with the emergence of new actors and mechanisms, such as private military companies and financing instruments. Ultimately, I am interested in what borders do, who gets to define them, and the regimes of control they reenact.

RS: What are securitization and border externalization?

YZ: Securitization refers to the process through which certain issues—in this case, border control and migration—are framed as urgent security threats that require extraordinary responses. Securitization is oftentimes intertwined with depoliticization. For example, when migration is framed as an existential threat, it become less a matter of policy debate and more a matter of national or even regional security. Such framing moves the issue outside the realm of politics, in ways that evade accountability and place decisionmaking in the hands of security experts. This leads to inadequate solutions that often overlook the human and political dimensions of the issue.

Border externalization, on the other hand, refers to the EU’s strategy of shifting migration control beyond its own territorial borders. The EU partners with neighboring countries, such as Tunisia and Libya, to manage migration flows before they reach European shores. This arrangement has so far included funding for border surveillance, maritime patrols, repatriation, and detention centers.

RS: Where do most migrants come from, and what are the major transit countries?

YZ: The composition of migrant populations varies by route, and not all routes exhibit the same migration patterns. When considering the EU’s relationship to North African states, the central Mediterranean is a key route. Through it, people from West and East Africa, the Maghreb, and increasingly South Asia, embark on perilous journeys. The two major transit countries are Tunisia and Libya, with boats headed to southern Europe, particularly Italy. The western Mediterranean is another important corridor, linking northwest Africa to southern Spain. Migrants from West Africa and the Sahel, as well as Morocco and Algeria, account for the majority of people on the move along this route. EU data for 2024 show a rise in arrivals to Spain’s Canary Islands—mostly migrants from Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and Morocco.

It’s important to remember that many people move within the Maghreb and the African continent as a whole. Irregular migration to the EU is only one part of a much larger story of mobility. But border securitization and externalization have turned neighboring countries into gatekeepers.

RS: What do you foresee for Europe in terms of migratory trends?

YZ: Migration to Europe is unlikely to stop, largely due to the structural drivers behind it, such as economic inequality, political repression, conflict, and so on. However, what has been shifting and will continue doing so are the routes, actors, and mechanisms involved. As center-right and far-right parties across Europe increasingly adopt anti-migration rhetoric, migrants’ access to EU states is likely to tighten further, pushing people toward more precarious and costly alternatives.

Earlier this year, the European Commission announced that it would overhaul its partnership with Tunisia, which has come under scrutiny for prioritizing migration control over human rights, and committing serious abuses in the process. However, this does not mark the end of the EU’s reliance on externalization. On the contrary, talk of “re-dynamization” signals a deepening of these arrangements, paving the way for more fraught bilateral relationships that are contingent on the security and economic interests of Europe and, to a lesser extent, North African countries.

At the same time, the political and social landscape within Europe itself puts its countries in a rather contradictory posture. Whereas borders are likely to tighten, demographic pressures—stemming from birth rates having declined below the population replacement rate—may lead to an increasingly selective opening for labor migration. This would keep alive and perhaps intensify debates over social integration, cohesion, and belonging.