Development aid as a tool of the EU's migration policy

Abstract

Since the refugee crisis of 2015, the European Union's institutions and EU Member States' governments have strengthened policies to manage better migration flows and protect the EU's external borders. In the external dimension, the Union implemented a wide variety of economic, political, and deterrence measures to regain control over migratory flows. Although development cooperation was declared one of the important tools for addressing root causes of migration, the externalization of migration management to neighboring transit countries became the main pillar of the anti-crisis strategy. Although this policy enabled to reduce essentially the number of irregular arrivals in Europe, it cannot be considered as a long-term solution. To be better prepared for migration challenges of the future, the EU should rethink its development cooperation with the origin and transit countries and include both forced and economic migrants in its comprehensive response. Aid can be a useful tool for the EU if it is used to manage rather than to stop migration.