Unwanted Neighbours: Looking Beyond the South/East Dichotomy in the European Union’s Irregular Migration Policies

Irregular migration is often portrayed as a daunting challenge for the European Union and its institutions to address. Discursive constructions of the issue as a security concern often relies of fluid analogies such as “rushes,” “floods,” or “flows;” highlighting the difficulties of controlling irregular migration at a policy level. Uneven distribution of the effects of irregular migration flows between the countries with external borders and other EU countries has resulted in the Europeanization of the issue, forcing the European Commission and its agencies to become the nodal points in addressing the issue. Co-operation with countries of origin and of transit of immigrants has emerged as one of the key dimensions of the EU’s approach to containing the flows of irregular migration. My paper examines the EU’s relations with its southern and eastern neighbours through the prism of migration regulation and the tools that have been adopted to manage migration flows toward the EU. It details how the EU’s repertoire of tools and policy linkages has been repackaged in response to third countries’ resistance to cooperation on irregular migration. Finally, it compares the responses of EU’s the southern and eastern neighbouring countries in an attempt to understand what impact inter-state migration relations have had on mobility opportunities of citizens of these countries.