European Migration Policy and Cooperation with Third Countries: The Creation of Buffer Zones

Cooperation with third countries of origin and transit of migration flows has been a method for the creation of security buffer zones around EU, preventing irregular access to the member states (Lindstrøm, 2005). Since the European Programs of Tampere (1999) and the Hague (2005), EU has been engaged in the fight against irregular migration with the means of external policy and diplomacy. The European Migration Policy includes a variety of external agreements aiming at controlling migration flows in the framework of AJFS and the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility framework (European Commission 2011). However, EU has incorporate clauses on migration management within agreements of CFSP, extending migration policy to the foreign and security framework (Matera, 2014). The underlying ideas of European external policy on migration has been the cooperation with key-third countries, the support of their migration management systems ( such as border controls), and the targeted development aid against the roots of migration. However, this paper argues that the current refugee crisis and the subsequent intensification of securitization of irregular immigrants has led EU decision makers to focus on security concerns undermining, at the same time, humanitarian and development considerations. Indeed, the concentration of EU on the aversion of the entrance of irregular immigrants of current migration crisis has provoked the subversion of the fight against the roots of migration such as poverty, violence and human rights violations, towards the fight of migrant flows which are considered as security threats to European societies.