This is an excerpt from the report “Effects of the EU’s Migration Diplomacy: Lessons from Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.” To access the full text (including footnotes), please download the PDF.
Executive Summary
Migration diplomacy with third countries is a central field in the foreign policy of the European Union (EU). In recent years, the EU has significantly expanded its engagement with countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), concluding high-profile deals with Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.
These five deals are often presented as comprehensive partnerships that simultaneously address migration management, economic cooperation, and regional stability. Yet their effectiveness and broader consequences remain contested. While some policymakers emphasize the success of the deals in reducing irregular migration and strengthening cooperation, critics highlight human rights risks. Drawing on extensive empirical research, this report assesses what these deals have actually achieved in practice and what not.
The deals share several defining characteristics. They are primarily driven by reducing irregular migration and advancing geopolitical interests. They are negotiated and announced at the highest political level and are also marked by publicity surrounding their signing. Decision-making is highly centralized in Brussels yet, in many cases, simultaneously driven by the priorities of individual EU member states. Lastly, although to varying degrees, the deals lack transparency, systematic monitoring, and consistent conditionality.
When examining the effects of the deals, five findings emerge:
First, the financial dimension of the agreements is frequently overstated. Although headline figures reach into the billions, large parts of the negotiated grants are repackaged or previously committed resources; the more substantial resources in the form of macro-financial assistance are loans.
Second, irregular migration from the partner country to the EU often falls after a deal is made, but this decline is due to other factors, too. A decisive role is also played by domestic political decisions in partner countries, bilateral initiatives by EU member states, and broader regional dynamics. Moreover, migration routes tend to shift rather than disappear. Decreases in migrant departures from one country are often offset by increases elsewhere, limiting the overall impact on irregular migration to the EU.
Third, the so-called comprehensive nature of these agreements remains largely rhetorical. While all deals formally include multiple policy areas, implementation is skewed toward migration control in most cases. Other objectives tend to receive less attention and produce limited measurable outcomes. This is also true for the mobility component in most deals, which does not fall under EU competence but remains the prerogative of EU member states.
Fourth, the deals have not significantly strengthened the EU’s political influence in partner countries and may have even weakened its credibility among the populations of those countries. The strong focus on migration control is often perceived negatively by local populations and civil society, reinforcing the image of the EU as primarily seeking to externalize migration management.
Fifth, while EU funding does not directly cause human rights violations, it may indirectly sustain or legitimize practices by partner governments by funding authorities that carry them out. The deals also seem to not have helped sustain the right to asylum in partner countries.
To improve the EU’s approach to migration diplomacy, this report offers five recommendations for the European Commission, the European Parliament, and EU member states:
- Increase transparency to allow for an informed debate: The Commission should more clearly disclose funding sources, implementation details, and human rights compliance procedures. It should meet response time targets for Freedom of Information requests and publish key documents proactively so that journalists and civil society can report on the deals accurately and promptly. In addition, the European Parliament and EU member states should strengthen transparency provisions in the upcoming negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) by mandating concrete provisions for the publication of contracted projects and the organizations implementing them.
- Introduce the Partnership Effects Monitoring Mechanism (PEMM): EU member states and the European Parliament should embed a Partnership Effects Monitoring Mechanism (PEMM) in the Global Europe Instrument and mandate the European Commission to carry it out. In contrast to the current project-level evaluation, PEMM would establish systematic deal-level monitoring that assesses outcomes across all priority areas, drawing on expertise from EU delegations and international organizations, as well as civil society and researchers from both partner countries and the EU.
- Apply conditions when implementing deals: When negotiating the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028 to 2034, EU member states and the European Parliament should make sure that financial support is linked to clear and enforceable human rights and governance standards that are backed by accessible complaint mechanisms.
- Expand mobility pathways to ensure the sustainability of migration cooperation: EU member states should implement existing mobility commitments for nationals of partner countries as foreseen in the deals. Equally, the Commission should further improve the involvement of member states in the set up and implementation of the deals to ensure buy-in. Further, member states should open mobility corridors to some refugees and migrants in partner countries. For example, they could open skills partnerships for third country nationals in partner countries, increase resettlement quotas, and expand complementary pathways for refugees.
- Adapt how the deals are sold: The EU Commission should avoid dual narratives that present agreements as migration-control tools to European audiences while framing them as equal partnerships to those abroad. It needs to be aware that deals with one country can serve as informal reference points and signal high price tags to other countries. In addition, the Commission needs to communicate beyond the moment of signature and proactively explain the deals’ content and implementation.
A fundamental departure from the EU’s current migration diplomacy approach is unlikely in the near term. But especially in times of tighter financial resources, the EU and its member states should have a strong interest in improving their migration diplomacy to decrease the downsides of the deals and increase their ability to deliver the much-desired results. The steps outlined here are a path toward that goal.
