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Debate
Afghanistan: Development matters, not counter-narcotics
Letters to the editor
Tackling migration regionally
11/2005 |
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[ Comment ]
Tackling migration regionally
The long-awaited report of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) actually came at an apt moment. While the experts presented their results, in Morocco hundreds of Africans desperately tried to reach the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla; more than a dozen died. But the commission failed its task. Its report avoids forceful recommendations on how politicians should deal with migration and the displacement of people.
[ By Gregory A. Maniatis ]
The 2,400-mile odyssey from Cameroon through the Sahara and to the Moroccan border can last a year. Tens of thousands of desperate migrants follow this path annually, enduring unspeakable hardship. Once they reach Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, yet another hurdle awaits them: the six-meter-high, razor-wire fence that surrounds the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. If ever there was a vision of Fortress Europe, this is it. Today, according even to the modest figures of EU Commissioner Franco Frattini, there are 30,000 Africans haunting Morocco and Algeria, scheming for ways to reach Europe.
It is no surprise that neither Frattini nor any other policymaker felt compelled to turn to the GCIM’s report for guidance on the crisis. The report is a compendium of nearly every idea debated for years in migration conferences. It also sets an unfortunate, politically correct tone from the outset by repeatedly underscoring that people should “migrate out of choice, rather than necessity.” As a primer on the latest thinking among migration experts on subjects from circular migration to “brain waste” to trafficking, the report will prove useful. As a rallying cry for the political class to pursue two or three key ideas – the goal the Commission should have set for itself – it is an abject failure.
The Commission’s headline recommendation is for the creation of an Inter-Agency Facility for Global Migration. Essentially, this is a lite version of the World Migration Organisation that has been flogged by diehards for decades and which has virtually no political support in the world’s capitals. The so-called “Facility” would coordinate the migration-related work of the UN’s various component parts – a worthwhile notion, but hardly one that had to be two years and $4 million in the making (also, it effectively exists already in the form of the Geneva Migration Group).
Little is likely to come directly of the report. Progress, however, might be made on other fronts. 2006 is Kofi Annan’s last year as UN Secretary-General. He has committed considerable time to migration issues. It is possible that he will draw out one or two central notions from the GCIM report and seek to advance them as part of his legacy.
If he opts for such a strategy, Annan could do worse than focus on one of the truly urgent needs in managing international migration – persuading countries to enter into serious, long-term bilateral and regional negotiations. In the aftermath of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain and Morocco called for an African-European Summit on migration, an idea that has been floated without follow-up in the past. This is an improvement on the tactics usually employed by European politicians when a migration crisis sours the public mood: Throw red meat at voters by suggesting ludicrous, non-starting notions like “sanctions” for sending countries and transit camps in Albania and Morocco.
Perhaps the magnitude of the North African crisis – and the threat Europeans feel from hundreds of thousands of destitute souls massing at their borders – will suffice to keep negotiators at the table until solutions are found. Annan’s presence could prove catalytic. The talks would be inherently complex – trying to find a delicate balance among everything from border controls to development aid to co-managing labor migration and visas. But it is this kind of regional negotiation and coordination that is lacking in most parts of the globe, be it between the US and Mexico, around the Mediterranean, or in the Balkans – where there are almost no discussions amongst Greece, Albania, Turkey, and their neighbours in one of the most porous neighbourhoods in the world.
The missing ingredient in spurring such talks is political leadership and courage. The Global Commission, given the chance to take on this mantle, was not up to the task. Hopefully others will emerge with the requisite vision and conviction before too many more Africans crucify themselves in their efforts to join the EU in whatever way they can.
Gregory A. Maniatis
is the European Policy Fellow at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
gmaniatis@gmail.com
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