Jean-Pierre Cassarino
Empowered Maghreb countries’ Responsiveness to the Cooperation on Readmission with EU Member States
Over the last few years, the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) have been increasingly involved in migration talks and negotiations, at bilateral and multilateral levels, related to migration management issues, including the readmission of third-country nationals and the reinforced control of the external borders of the European Union (EU).
There is no question that the participation of the Maghreb countries in these talks is reflective of their willingness to open a dialogue on such issues as the management of migration flows (whether legal or illegal), reinforced border controls and police cooperation. However, despite the openness of the Maghreb countries to dialogue on migration management, the conclusion of readmission agreements remains a tricky issue. Actually, the capacity of the Maghreb countries to deal effectively with the reintegration of their forcibly removed nationals remains extremely limited, from an institutional, structural, financial and economic point of view. Moreover, readmission agreements have been predominantly viewed by most Maghreb countries as being responsive to the sole interests of the EU and its member states. The former have been reluctant to engage in formal readmission agreements with the latter.
This does not mean, however, that they do not cooperate on readmission. Despite the reluctance of the Maghreb countries to engage in formal readmission agreements, alternative patterns of bilateral cooperation on enforced return have gained momentum over the last two decades. These alternative patterns of cooperation include memoranda of understanding, exchanges of letters, police cooperation agreements including, among other things, a clause on readmission. They do not constitute formal readmission agreements. However, they are no less agreements for that having serious implications on state-to-state cooperation and other things besides.
These considerations induce us to analyse the reasons and the extent to which the Maghreb countries have been responsive to the need for enhanced cooperation on migration management, including the issue of readmission.
It will be demonstrated that their responsiveness results from the emergence of new power relations which contrast with those that were prevailing five years ago, when the European Union decided to exert stronger leverage on third countries on the issue of readmission, as a result of the June 2002 Seville European Council.
Today, such EU member states as France, Italy and Spain are being prone to flexibly readapt their bilateral patterns of cooperation on readmission with a view to securing a modicum of operability with their Maghreb neighbours. Indeed, given the empowered position that the latter have acquired as a result of their involvement in the reinforced control of the external borders of the EU, the adaptive inclination of the abovementioned three EU Member States is now more a necessity than an option.
Download background paper: Informalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood .gif)
Don J. DeVoretz
Profiling at the Canadian Border: An Economist’s Viewpoint
Scrutiny at the Canadian border involves a substantial use of resources as well as imposing opportunity costs in terms of travel time and trade diversion. One proposed but maligned strategy to minimize these costs at the border has been group or racial profiling. This essay develops a pedigree system for Canadian border security which simultaneously reduces both Type I (false positives) and II (false negative) errors and time and diversion costs at the border while avoiding racial or group profiling.
