Articles

Estudios Fronterizos, vol. 23, 2022, e109

https://doi.org/10.21670/ref.2225109

The externalization of the EU “migration management matrix” to Latin America and the Caribbean

La externalización de la “matriz de gestión migratoria” de la UE hacia América Latina y el Caribe

Silvana Santi^{a *} https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7388-4631

^a Universidad de Belgrano, Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina, e-mail: silvanasanti@hotmail.com

^* Corresponding author: Silvana Santi. E-mail: silvanasanti@hotmail.com

Received on April 1, 2022.
Accepted on November 22, 2022.
Published on December 5, 2022.

CITATION: Santi, S. (2022). La externalización de la “matriz de gestión migratoria” de la UE hacia América Latina y el Caribe [The externalization of the EU “migration management matrix” to Latin America and the Caribbean]. Estudios Fronterizos, 23, e109. https://doi.org/10.21670/ref.2225109

Abstract:
In the 1990s, the EU adopted the political idea of migration management to deal with migrations from third countries. This cleared the way for an externalization of the communitarian migration control to other regions. In this regard, there are studies on the effects of this process on African, East European, and Asian countries. In contrast, the literature has neglected the Latin American and Caribbean zone. The aim of this article is to analyze the process of externalization to Latin America and the Caribbean, through the EU budget lines for migration management between 2001 and 2020. Based on the examination of a corpus of official documents, the work shows that the EU has a matrix for migration management, defined by three axes: external borders, fight against “illegal” immigration, and development. The projects developed in Latin America and the Caribbean have reproduced this matrix, working as tools of the communitarian migration control.
Keywords: migration control, borders, security, migration, third countries.

Resumen:
En la década de 1990, la UE adoptó la gestión migratoria como idea política para tratar las migraciones provenientes de terceros países. Esto dio paso a un proceso de externalización del control migratorio comunitario hacia otras regiones. Existen estudios sobre los efectos de esta externalización en países africanos, del Este europeo y asiáticos. Sin embargo, América Latina y el Caribe fue desatendida por la literatura académica. Por eso, el objetivo es analizar el proceso de externalización hacia América Latina y el Caribe, a través de las líneas presupuestarias de la UE para la gestión migratoria establecidas entre 2001 y 2020. Para ello, se utiliza un corpus de documentos oficiales. Del estudio emerge que la UE posee una matriz de gestión migratoria con tres ejes: fronteras exteriores, lucha contra la inmigración “ilegal” y desarrollo. Los proyectos desarrollados en América Latina y el Caribe replicaron esa matriz y operaron como herramientas del control migratorio comunitario.
Palabras clave: control migratorio, fronteras, seguridad, migración, terceros países.

Original article language: Spanish.

Introduction

Extra-EU migration has been conceived and addressed as a security issue since its inclusion as a matter of the Community’s interest in 1985. Parallel to the establishment of an area of free mobility within the European Union (EU) and the demarcation of the bloc’s perimeter borders, views favoring the promotion of increasingly repressive policies and practices toward flows from third countries came to the fore. Along this path, it is possible to distinguish crucial moments in the EU’s “coordinative discourse” (Schmidt, 2008) on how to deal with the control of non-EU migratory movements, in which the idea of migration management becomes essential.

But what are the distinctive features of the migration management proposed by the EU? What is the relationship between EU migration management and the externalization of EU migration controls to third countries? Since the early 2000s, numerous studies have reported on the externalization process of EU migration policies and its effects on African, Eastern European, and Asian countries. However, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region was neglected by the academic literature despite the growing number of its citizens in Europe between 2000-2010 and 2015-2020 (International Organization for Migration [IOM], 2021, p. 88). The focus on Latin America and the Caribbean is important as a case study to achieve a comparative view in relation to other regions previously studied. There is also insufficient background on the budget allocations of community migration management to see these changes, with some exceptions (e.g., Lavenex, 2007, 2015; Den Hertog, 2016; Molinari, 2021). Money sets political priorities and is one more tool of the bordering process (Molinari, 2021). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the externalization process toward Latin America and the Caribbean through the following EU budget lines for migration management established between 2001 and 2020: the B7 budget line (2001-2003); the Aeneas Program (2004-2006); the Thematic Programme on Cooperation with Third Countries in the Areas of Migration and Asylum (TPMA, 2007-2013); the Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows Program (Solid, 2007-2013); the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF, 2014-2020). This analysis is based on the development of an EU migration management matrix to understand these dynamics and their possible repercussions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

For this purpose, the investigation uses official documents from different EU institutions and member countries involved in projects implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean. Following Zapata-Barrero et al. (2008), discursive guidance documents on the EU’s strategic lines (European Council conclusions) and other binding precedents such as the EU treaties and others produced by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU (regulations, directives, and decisions) were considered. In addition, work was carried out with reports produced by various EU institutions and ministries of some member countries with projects in the region of interest, such as Spain and Italy, and external evaluations, commissioned by the EU, on certain migration management programs. From the overall corpus, useful categories were extracted to account for the repercussions of EU migration management in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the first part, the paper discusses the emergence of the idea of migration management as a policy approach to deal with non-EU immigration. It then focuses on the emergence of the EU migration management matrix. Subsequently, it analyzes the migration management projects dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean in the respective budget lines B7, Aeneas, TPMA, Solid, AMIF, and ISF. Finally, it is concluded that these projects reflect the extension of EU migration control and the consolidation of the EU as a major player in the international trend toward cooperative migration control.

Security as a tool for (re)constructing the community and the extra-community: the paradigm of migration management in the EU

At the institutional level, extra-EU migration has been represented since the mid-1980s as a security issue on which political action should be taken. In this process, crucial moments of the EU’s “coordinative discourse” (Schmidt, 2008) can be distinguished, which positioned the idea of “migration management” as the way to deal with the control of non-EU migration flows. The “coordinative discourse” occurs when relevant political actors, with access to the development of public policy, participate in the creation, preparation, and justification of political and programmatic ideas (Schmidt, 2008).

Certain historical events and institutional encounters have shaped the course of ideas in EU migration policy. The end of the Cold War was a key moment for the “coordinative discourse”. At the dawn of the launch of the EU, political personalities predicted “migratory pressures” and a “migratory crisis” due to the fall of the Berlin Wall, representations that served to legitimize the problematization of East-West and South-North migration as a security issue (Santi, 2011). This context served to shield external borders, strengthen cooperation between member countries, and focus on migration control (Brochmann, 1999). This shaped how the extra-EU migration issue was incorporated into the community agenda: it went from being an issue to a problem to be solved.

The preparations for the launch of the EU, where ideas circulated and policy guidelines were negotiated, were a prelude to approaches still in force today. Between 1991 and 1992, the perspectives on migration had a common horizon. The Commission of the European Communities expressed the need for a “global approach to the problem”¹ of migration, stressing that “whatever one country does may affect the situation in the others”, for which reason three proposals were outlined: “taking action on migration pressures”, “controlling migration flows” and “strengthening integration policies for the benefit of legal immigrants” (Commission of the European Communities, 1991, pp. 2-3, emphasis added). In this direction, Community policies were oriented to act in coordination, combining migration policy, foreign policy, and economic cooperation (Consejo Europeo, 1992). Foreign policy was to contain what the bloc would later call the “fight against illegal migration” and the link between migration and development. These ingredients of today’s migration policy were already there, but they needed an umbrella idea.

Given these circumstances, a malleable notion of security has permeated EU migration policy through the idea of migration management, in which multiple categories are grouped under the common denominator of migration control. At least three trends coexist in this paradigm: migration management is mobilized by actors to conceptualize and justify their interventions in the migration field; it is linked to practices that are part of migration policies and are promoted by institutions; and it refers to a set of discourses and new narratives on what migration is and how it should be addressed (Geiger & Pécoud, 2010).

Migration management has spread to different countries, which have adapted it to different circumstances, varying its intensity and acquiring local/national/regional characteristics, although always keeping a close relationship with migration control (Santi Pereyra, 2021). Migration management takes different directions and emphasizes control according to the actor that implements it and the geographic region in which it is applied. The early adoption of migration management as a programmatic idea in the EU reveals that control has been an important foundation for extra-EU migration policy:

Controlling migration is to formulate basic principles in order to reflect the distinction between migration pressure and other forms of migration. Hence controlling migration does not necessarily imply bringing it to an end: it means migration management. (Commission of the European Communities, 1994, point 70, emphasis added)

This excerpt is a result of the EU’s “coordinative discourse”. In the discursive construction of policy problems, the problematization phase is where they acquire their form and meaning, creating constructs that have far-reaching consequences (Barbehön et al., 2017) and even material and practical effects. The programmatic idea emerges to facilitate policymaking by specifying how to solve certain problems (Campbell, 2002). In this programmatic idea of EU migration management, it is necessary to segment migration flows between EU and non-EU, and to differentiate the third countries of origin and the profiles that, depending on the political situation, can be classified as a “migration pressure” for the EU. In this way, threats are constructed as coming from outside the Community territory (Bigo, 2014).

At this point, it is necessary to pay attention to the interactive process of ideas and how they circulate among political actors, taking into account structure and agency (Schmidt, 2008, 2011). The positions expressed by the Commission of the European Communities (1994) resembled those of Bimal Ghosh, who, according to Geiger and Pécoud (2010), was the creator of the idea of migration management² within the IOM in 1993. The EU’s allusion to migration management was made at the same time as the signing of a partnership framework agreement between the European Commission and the IOM. This suggests the existence of an institutional collaboration in which political ideas were exchanged. Thus, it cannot be ignored how institutions open the doors of policymaking to academics, intellectuals, and new political ideas (Mehta, 2011), and that the places where these ideas circulate are a central element for them to have the possibility of being incorporated into policies and institutions. Precisely, the document of the Commission of the European Communities (1994) was prepared prior to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, a space in which migration management was positioned at the global level. This event was another milestone of the “coordinative discourse” and was attended by politicians, civil servants, experts, and activists from all over the world. These are actors capable of legitimizing, incorporating and, therefore, reproducing ideas in public policies. Certainly, the political ideas circulating at the ICPD/1994 coincided with those developed in the European sphere about being able to manage, from a rationalist perspective, populations in the world based on regional interest (Santi Pereyra, 2021).

On the other hand, the EU’s idea of migration management incorporated the notion of borders. Internal and external borders were consummated in the area of “freedom, security and justice”, endorsed by the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which drew attention to border security. From that moment on, the boundaries of what could be policed were no longer limited by geographical borders but related to the interests and resources that the EU could deploy to determine which objects and subjects became part of its security sovereignty sphere. The EU demarcated its spaces of interference through practices blurred with appeals to “mutual” or “global” interests, or “shared responsibilities”, and so on. The analysis of this magnified geographical perception of the territory of action will be discussed in more detail in the following pages.

Unraveling the EU migration management matrix

EU migration management, which in 1994 was aimed at a malleable and selective type of control, was systematized as a proposal at the Tampere European Council in 1999, a meeting that led to the communitarisation of the political treatment of non-EU migration. Migration management was stipulated in Tampere as a global approach that should address flows in “all their stages” based on “close cooperation with countries of origin and transit”, with a view to “tackling illegal immigration at source”, which called for strengthening “cooperation and mutual technical assistance between the border control services of the Member States” (Consejo Europeo, 1999a, points 22-24).

The Tampere European Council was a breakthrough on the road to EU migration management as a programmatic idea. It was proposed there that the Member States and enlargement candidates themselves should take migration control practices beyond the EU borders, with the creation of a migration control chain by actively involving a network of public and private actors in countries of origin-transit-destination through cooperative action. These countries nourished themselves of the EU migration political agenda. This is where migration management is linked to externalization. As Mezzadra and Neilson (2013) point out, a key aspect of externalization is to involve third countries in the creation and management of border regimes.

From Tampere onwards, what this article calls EU migration management matrix has been configured (see Figure 1). This matrix implies a way of thinking and acting politically, focused on the control and containment of extra-EU population movements. It is designed to be gradually transposed into the structures of the member countries and transferred to the so-called third countries, through foreign policy instruments (Santi Pereyra, 2021). The term matrix is alluded to because it acts as a programmatic model, which shapes and impacts the treatment of migration in international relations. This EU migration management matrix, operational to date, comprises the aspects of external borders, the fight against “illegal” immigration and development, each of which involves categories to be found in the policies applied by the EU and member countries toward third countries.

Figure 1. EU migration management matrix for third countries

Source: Santi Pereyra, 2021

In a sort of dialectic, the member countries draw up and negotiate these guidelines,³ elevate them to the EU acquis and (re)produce a (re)legitimization of the migratory agenda that is then incorporated into each foreign agenda, both their own and of the whole. Boswell (2003, p. 619) has pointed out that the Member States have tried to address the dilemmas of migration management through cooperation with the countries of origin and transit of migrants, which constitute the so-called “external dimension” in the cooperation of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) area. This phenomenon that first impacts member countries and then third countries can be understood as what Buckel et al. (2017, p. 15) call a “twofold externalization” of EU migration controls. However, it can also be read as a double and simultaneous process of Europeanization and externalization of EU migration control toward non-EU states (Boswell, 2003).

This extraterritorial control has been a constant feature of migration policies designed by the EU (Anderson, 2000; Lahav & Guiraudon, 2000; Lavenex, 2006). This externalization has involved the introduction of “preventive measures” such as visa requirements, the issuing of fines to transport companies, and the use of development aid to the countries of origin and transit of migrants to exercise “long-distance control” (Brochmann, 1999, pp. 12-23), or what Zolberg (1999) calls “remote control” mechanisms. In a similar line, Bigo (2001) and Bigo and Guild (2005) refer to “remote policing” or “policing at a distance” policies, while Gil Araujo (2006, 2011a, 2011b) calls it the “delocalization of control”, and Boswell (2003) speaks of “pre-frontier control”. In short, borders exist where selective controls are exercised (Balibar, 2005), even if this does not coincide with geographical, political, and administrative demarcations.

These theoretical contributions highlight how controversial it is to speak of cooperation in migration matters considering the interaction between actors with unequal power relations in the international system. Institutionalizing the tightening of migration control through the idea of migration management is a way to qualify its repressive and asymmetrical effects, since the “global approach” to migration proclaimed by the EU sought to increase its leadership on the international scene by creating a containment network for its migration control policies:

The advances introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam will also enhance the Union’s role as a player and participant on the international scene, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora. As a result, and building on the dialogue already initiated on cooperation (...) with an increasing number of third countries, international organizations and bodies (...) this external aspect of the Union’s action can be expected to take on a new and more demanding dimension. (...) the communitarization of matters relating to asylum, immigration and judicial cooperation in civil matters will enable the Community (...) to influence these matters at an international level. (Consejo de la Unión Europea, 1998, part II, section E, point 22, emphasis added)

After the September 2001 attacks, a reinforced security policy agenda found a new legitimizing element to support the tightening of migration control policies that were already active. The European Commission (EC) proposed the need for a global and coordinated method of migration management to be applied in each State and to take into account the nexus between foreign policy and development (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2001), a connection that had already been officially projected at the beginning of the 1990s. This guide for decision-making, together with the EU’s need to show itself as a consolidated international actor, its vocation to extend its power, and the structuring of a migration management matrix, configured interrelated processes that were then reflected in the financial budgets for the EU’s migration management.

Budget line B7 (2001-2003)

In response to the “global approach” to migration, the EU established budget line B7-667 in 2001 to achieve partnerships with third countries of origin and transit through migration management projects. This was complemented by other funding under code B7. Basically, the content of the projects shifted the EU migration policy agenda to geographic areas of interest outside the EU perimeter. This geopolitical expansion demonstrated the emergence and development of new ways of understanding “international migration relations” (Geddes, 2005, p. 791), as shown below.

Figure 2. Migration management projects financed by the EU in third countries (2001-2003)

Source: Santi Pereyra, 2021

The map in Figure 2 shows the migration management initiatives in third countries planned by the EU between 2001 and 2003, included in budget lines B7-54, B7-300, B7-520, B7-701, B7-667, B7-6120, European Development Fund (EDF), and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).⁴ These funds were disbursed during a three-year pilot phase, in which priority was given to “innovative” cooperation projects with third countries in the field of migration for a total of 934 468 288 euros, of which 442 351 352 euros were assigned to what is specifically referred to as migration management (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2002b).

Relations of inequality produce geographies of migration control (Stock et al., 2019). In this regard, Figure 2 shows that the EU border extends beyond the space defined by the Schengen Agreement. Moreover, it reveals how borders are a social and political construction: they acquire greater or lesser plasticity, according to the power of the actor that can extend or restrict them in a given historical time (Santi Pereyra, 2021). The incorporated immigration controls unveil a hegemony that makes this re-bordering possible, a process that requires a transformation of the state (Buckel et al., 2017). The association of the EU with international organizations─in this case the IOM─to implement migration management measures contributes to this re-bordering and could exempt States from human rights responsibilities, since they are not the direct executors.

The externalization of EU migration management shown in Figure 2 also reached Latin America and the Caribbean through projects in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. In the Caribbean country, 1 250 000 euros were assigned from the EDF for the management of Haitian immigration. But why deal with a cross-border migration flow? This was a seed that, over the years, would germinate as a trend in EU migration policies: to control migration between third countries as an amplified form of migration management containing movements to Europe. In addition, the Dominican Republic belonged to the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group of countries, with which the EU had just signed the Cotonou Agreement (2000) that included a clause on readmission of “illegal immigrants”. On the other hand, the EU allocated 1 000 000 euros from the B7-701 budget line in Ecuador for the project “Strategies and actions for the protection of the human rights of immigrants, their families, and victims of human trafficking”. One of the products of this project was a guide⁵ to warn of the dangers of irregular immigration and the obvious─but for many unattainable─advantages of regular immigration. At that time, Ecuador was the main Latin American country sending people to Spain (Santi Pereyra, 2021).

Aeneas Program (2004-2006)

Budget line B7 was succeeded by the Aeneas Program, aimed at providing technical and financial assistance to third countries in the areas of migration and asylum. Its objective was to support the migration management carried out by non-EU countries. This reflected a change in the strategy of the EU: it was no longer a question of planning projects simply for third countries but with them. A “partnership” was thus established that strengthened the link between migration and foreign policy:

EU policy should aim to assist third countries, in the form of full partnership─using existing EU funds where appropriate─in their efforts to improve their migration management and refugee protection capacity, prevent and combat illegal immigration, provide information on legal channels of migration, (...) build border control capacity, improve document security, and address the problem of return. (Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2004, p. 20, emphasis added)

The “partnership” between the EU and third countries implied building a framework from which to think about migration and migration control, with the financing in countries of origin of mechanisms to convey conceptions on EU migration management policies and practices, such as the aforementioned capacity building, which is nothing more than the transfer of knowledge.⁶ Therefore, the EU external strategy needed to be coordinated with networks of actors, as recorded: “the Aeneas Program has led to greater (although still limited) participation on the part of governmental and non-governmental organizations (...)” (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006a, p. 7).

Although this three-year program⁷ was aimed at migration management in the African and Asian regions─where the EU “global approach” to migration was concentrated─,⁸ some measures were also implemented in Latin America. Between 2004 and 2006, of the total of 107 Aeneas projects, only six were carried out in Latin American countries such as Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, and El Salvador.

The first project⁹ in Ecuador dealt with a model for optimizing the use of remittances, aimed at the Ecuadorian population living in Spain. Under the label of migration and development, it proposed that remittances could be used to generate self-employment and social development projects. As part of the activities, an awareness campaign aimed at young people and relatives of immigrants in origin was planned to “prevent illegal migration and favour investment in the country” (European Commission & EuropeAid, 2007, p. 103). In other words, its intention was to promote remittances among the Ecuadorian community as a mechanism for migration control and investment of private resources in Ecuador. The second project¹⁰ shared between Colombia and Ecuador aimed to establish a Colombian-Ecuadorian monitoring agency on migration. Among the many activities, it also sought to sponsor local development initiatives in municipalities of high migratory impact in these countries. Coincidentally, Ecuador and Colombia were the main nationalities of Latin American migration in Spain between 2001 and 2008 (Santi & Clavijo, 2020) and the only ones in the region where forced returns from the EU were taking place.

Two other projects in Colombia were dedicated to measures to contain irregular flows. The first focused on preventing “illegal” Colombian migration and the “abuses” this caused in the asylum system at destination.¹¹ The second focused on promoting circular migration between Colombia and Spain.¹² Meanwhile, in Bolivia, one project¹³ sought to improve biometrics in travel documents and border management, and promote the return and reintegration of migrants. As for the project¹⁴ in El Salvador on human development and migration, it planned to strengthen national and Central American capacities by implementing a migration management platform. In sum, this last group of projects focused on training in migration management, mainly for state actors, but also for civil society, which had visions in line with the EU securitarian logic on how to “orderly” migration at origin.

This turn of the page can also be seen in the perspective of EU funding for migration and asylum in third countries, which discursively shifted from the “assistance” proposed in the Aeneas Program to “support” through the external measures implemented since 2006. This reinforced the EU’s strategy of influencing from within rather than from outside. The EU’s development cooperation tools intensified the EU’s migration management matrix and promoted the externalization of migration control toward Latin American countries, as will be seen below.

TPMA Program (2007-2013)

With the establishment of the Development Cooperation Instrument (Regulation [EC] No. 1905/2006), the EU launched the Thematic Programme on cooperation with Third Countries in the Areas of Migration and Asylum (TPMA) for the period 2007-2013. This followed the conclusions of the Brussels European Council of December 2005 (Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006), which provided intensified financial assistance on migration in relations with third countries. The objective of the TPMA was to “support those countries in their efforts to ensure better management of migration flows in all their dimensions” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55, emphasis added).

Synthetically, the TPMA transposed the EU’s migration management matrix by channeling its program toward externalization measures in the countries of origin. The points of the TPMA proposed (1) favoring the links between migration and development, (2) promoting “well-managed” labor migration, (3) combating “illegal” immigration and facilitating its readmission, (4) protecting emigrants, and (5) promoting asylum and international protection─most of these included migration control at origin.

From an economic view of migration, the first point directly related the migration-development nexus to migration control, by proposing to: increase “the value of return migration”; “encourage the circular movement of skilled migrants”; “support voluntary return and reintegration”; “build capacities for migration management”; “promote (...) capacity building to help countries formulate pro-development migration policies”; and “acquire the capacity to jointly manage migration flows” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55). The document linked development policies to return and the prevention of new arrivals by emphasizing learning to manage migration, even by changing policies in countries of origin. The capacity building referred to sought to promote, through projects, the implementation of the ideas of the EU migration management matrix in non-EU countries by enshrining them in the regulations. The aim was to make the EU migration management matrix operate according to what Campbell and Pedersen (2011) refer to as the knowledge regime, i.e., a series of political ideas produced and disseminated by actors, organizations, and institutions that have an impact on how policymaking works and is organized.

The second point on labor migration also aimed at capacity building, involving support for the “training” of candidates for legal migration and the promotion of “legislative frameworks for migrant workers in third countries. Through cooperation, the EU sought to influence migration processes from within, both in terms of the profile of desired migrants and of the definition of laws at origin.

On the third point, the inclusion of strictly migration control items in a document dedicated to development cooperation revealed a view of development in line with the EU’s migration management matrix, by involving: “facilitating the readmission of illegal immigrants, including between third countries” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55). This implied that the “remote control” (Zolberg, 1999) of the EU would move to and for the first time between non-EU countries, in other words, that it would operate in situ. To this end, it was proposed:

(...) to combat (...) trafficking in human beings; to deter illegal immigration (...); to improve capacities in the areas of border, visa, and passport management, including document security and biometric data entry, and the detection of false documents; to effectively implement readmission agreements (...), and to help third countries in the management of illegal immigration and in the coordination of their policies. (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55, emphasis added)

This excerpt is another decisive sign that the EU migration management matrix sought to impose itself as a knowledge regime. It cannot be overlooked that capacity building was considered by the TPMA as a tool to make effective the external strategy of the EU JHA area. It sought to engage third countries with readmission agreements for “illegal” immigrants, law enforcement, and border control (Council of the European Union, 2005).

In this way, the external dimension of the EU migration policy had a foot in the bureaucratic apparatuses of migration control of non-EU countries, in search of “improving capacity” at origin for the “border management” of both third countries and the EU. In this interstice, the knowledge regime meets the border regime. The border plays a central role as a element of securitization in the relations between the EU, member countries, and non-EU countries. As happened with the idea of migration management, almost simultaneously, the IOM included border management among its initiatives in 2004 (Santi, 2020) and stressed that it was a shared interest, especially with the EC (Organización Internacional para las Migraciones [OIM], 2011). Lavenex (2007, 2015) indicates that the IOM was a subcontractor to the EU in 26% of B7-667 projects, 44% of Aeneas projects, and 16% of TPMA projects. This shows the IOM’s active collaboration in the outsourcing of EU migration management─and controls─to extra-regional countries. This is compatible with the IOM’s role as securitization actor in southern hemisphere countries (Santi, 2020).

In the fourth point of the TPMA, on the protection of migration, measures were planned to “protect migrants (...) from exploitation and exclusion” with “measures such as developing third countries’ legislation in the field of migration” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55). Once again, the migratory regulations of third countries were the object of political interest of the EU and this ratifies the change of strategy of the EU to which reference was made: to have an impact from within. Similarly, the last point of the TPMA, on asylum and international protection, also spoke of “strengthening institutional capacities” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006, p. 55).

With these coordinates, 189 TPMA projects were selected between 2007 and 2013 (Picard & Greco, 2014) with a focus on security, development, and rights. In the Latin America and Caribbean region, nearly 24 projects¹⁵ were financed that had a direct impact on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and the region in general.

Colombia was the country where most TPMA projects were implemented. One of them¹⁶ sought to encourage local development strategies, prevent “uncontrolled migration” and promote “controlled” migration from some Colombian cities to Spain. It sought to empower both migrants in Spain and their families in Colombia as agents of development for their communities of origin. Another project¹⁷ sought to strengthen Colombian state capacities to address human trafficking to Central America and Europe, reinforcing prevention and inter-institutional coordination, especially in border areas.

Colombia also shared TPMA initiatives with other states. One project¹⁸ focusing on climate change and displacement included Colombia and Haiti among its case studies. Another¹⁹ brought together Ecuador and Colombia to strengthen the implementation of regional²⁰ recommendations for the protection of rights in the area where the Colombian population seeking international protection is concentrated. The project²¹ focused on Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay and aimed to create knowledge incubators through networking with skilled migrants. Another more ambitious project²² sought to build state capacity to prevent and combat human trafficking in Colombia and also in Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and Brazil. Its objective was to support national efforts to prevent and combat irregular migration and human trafficking through technical assistance to the Colombian state (European Commission & EuropeAid, 2010, p. 60) by implementing action plans in the four border regions, cross-border activities, and increasing technical cooperation between countries. It was a practical example of the third point of the TPMA, which proposed to combat “illegal” immigration and trafficking by carrying out action even between third countries, thus activating the EU’s “remote control” in situ, but indirectly.

Ecuador was the second most important country for the TPMA fund. It was the subject of a project²³ promoting international protection for Colombian refugees in that country and an initiative²⁴ to strengthen protection systems and the rights of migrant children on the State’s northern and southern borders. At another level, a global project²⁵ involved Ecuador and Jamaica among a few countries selected to create a Joint Initiative on Migration and Development (JIMD) (European Commission & EuropeAid, 2010, p. 66). It contained a wide range of local and international actors, migrant and civil society organizations, academia, and trade unions. Its goal was to strengthen the capacities of small-scale actors to design and implement migration and development initiatives, facilitate networking and knowledge exchange, and draw up recommendations for practitioners and policymakers. Basically, its activities were focused on circulating ideas on migration and development among an extensive network through capacity building.

The Andean countries as a whole were included in several ventures. One project²⁶ sought to improve local management of flows of migrant domestic workers from Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru to the EU, mainly to Spain. The objective was for authorities, migrant associations, and other key actors at origin and destination to develop information and support mechanisms for domestic workers (including potential ones) already on EU soil. Among the expected results was that “authorities in key areas of countries of origin” were projected to increase their “capacity to manage migration flows, including returnee migration and remittances of women domestic workers that go to the EU” (European Commission & EuropeAid, 2010, p. 59). Due to the economic crisis of 2008, many Latin American women in Spain supported their families, in the place of origin and destination, in the face of the loss of work for men, a situation confirmed by social security registrations, especially in domestic employment (Pedone et al., 2014).

Another project²⁷ also aimed at Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru contributed to migration management by implementing the Andean Migration Service. This initiative would pay attention to the conditions for the return of migrants from these countries and monitor the human rights of migrants and their families. The project was also to contribute to the functioning of the return program between Spain, Colombia, and Ecuador in the reintegration of migrants due to voluntary or forced return. As a result, several issues of the journal Diálogos Migrantes and studies on human rights and the return of migrants were published, and a workshop on migration statistics and a survey on international migration and remittances were carried out in the Andean region. At the individual level, a project²⁸ dedicated to Peru worked on the rights of migrants and the fight against their trafficking from that country to the EU. Among its results, it financed a publication by the Peruvian Ombudsman’s Office on the problems of this migrant population in Milan, Genoa, and Turin, as well as a migration orientation guide with resources both for entering and living in Italy and for returning to Peru.

Mexico ranked third in terms of the number of TPMA initiatives involving it. A project²⁹ on the promotion and protection of the human rights of women migrant workers had it among the three countries under study. Mexico was chosen because of its high proportion of women migrants and because it is a State of origin, transit and destination, characteristics of importance to the goal of emphasizing its participation in international and national human rights mechanisms. On the same topic, another project³⁰ involved Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. It focused on the protection and promotion of the human rights of migrants in transit, by creating a collaborative network of public agencies and local civil society organizations. Workshops and training sessions were also carried out within this initiative. A project³¹ dedicated to Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize sought to improve migration management in Central America by promoting inter-state cooperation to advance the free movement of people. Emphasis was placed on technical capacity building among authorities, officials, and infrastructure for interconnected border migration control, for which the “best practices” of the European model would be shared. Finally, a project³² involving Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic was aimed at preventing irregular migration by targeting government and civil society institutions.

Within the latter two regions, another initiative³³ promoted labor migration policies with a gender perspective in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. To this end, support was provided to policymakers and social partners in this area to improve the recognition of diplomas and social security coverage for migrant workers. In the Caribbean, a project³⁴ was implemented in the Dominican Republic to strengthen and promote the links between Haitian migration and the development of the Dominican economy.

Brazil was the only country to have three TPMA projects of its own. One³⁵ proposed to build transnational partnerships to prevent and respond to human trafficking from there to the EU. It included exchange of practices between Brazil, Italy, and Portugal, training of Brazilian police, and awareness-raising campaigns. Another project³⁶ aimed to strengthen the Brazilian government’s capacity to manage new migration flows. The last project³⁷ was focused on protecting Brazilian migrants bound for the EU from exploitation, with the collaboration of Spain and Portugal. These initiatives ensured the coordination of actions between different Brazilian governmental institutions; the country’s collaboration with the main migratory destination States; and the interrelation between the prevention of irregular migration and the protection of migrants’ rights (Rousselot et al., 2013). In other words, rights coexisted with securitarian control at origin as a preventive approach to unwanted immigration.

At the regional level, a joint project³⁸ was activated that aimed to strengthen dialogue and cooperation between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean through the establishment of models for the management of migration and development policies. In a broad sense, the initiative aimed to integrate migration into policy formulation, promote the permanent exchange of information, data, and good practices, and strengthen the EU-LAC Structured Dialogue on Migration (Rousselot et al., 2013). Finally, Latin American countries were encompassed in two regional projects³⁹ located in Uruguay, which were dedicated to producing information on existing health personnel, their intra-regional flows, and their flows to the EU. The latter promoted the migration management of health professionals, opening up possibilities for circular migration between Latin America and the EU (Charpin & Aiolfi, 2011) through agreements.

In short, unlike the migration management projects under budget line B7 (2001-2003), which were deployed only in Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, under the Aeneas Program (2004-2006) initiatives were promoted that involved Colombia, Bolivia, and El Salvador in addition to Ecuador. This trend toward the extension of the EU’s migration management map was maintained during the TPMA, which covered 18 countries directly, Venezuela indirectly, and the Latin American region in general. Judging by the number of initiatives, Colombia, Ecuador and, to a lesser extent, Mexico were priority countries for the TPMA (see Figure 3). Ecuador stands out because it was the only country expressly identified as a source of increasing migration flows to the EU (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006b) and included in the three EU migration management budgets established between 2001 and 2008, as shown in Figure 3. In terms of strategies, the EU─since the introduction of the TPMA─has put a great deal of effort to fund projects and initiatives on migration in Latin America and the Caribbean, which include capacity building as a tool to have an impact on the ideas, procedures, and the ways in which state and civil society actors in the region deal with population mobility.

Figure 3. Impact of EU-funded migration management projects in third countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (2001-2013)

Note: the dots and numbers on the map show the expanded scope of the projects, which, although formally assigned to one country as the focus, may include more States in their development. Source: created by the author based on official EU data (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2002b; European Commission & EuropeAid, 2007, 2010)

The increasing attention that EU migration management has given to Latin America and the Caribbean since the TPMA program is connected to the interests expressed by the bloc a few years earlier. Although since 2005 Africa and the Mediterranean have been the priority areas of the EU’s global approach to migration, it was already anticipated that, in the long term, many of the measures aimed at these regions could be applied to Latin America and Asia (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006b). The extension of EU migration control to Latin America and the Caribbean in a few years shows a malleability to transform and reconfigure borders and operate beyond their boundaries. This attribute of the EU is based on its position of power within the international system, which gives it a wide margin within the migratory sphere to reconstruct borders and influence geopolitical spaces within and outside the EU.

Solid program (2007-2013)

The EU pursued a shared vision on migration. To the “associative” strategy with third countries, the EU would add a “solidarity” strategy among its Member States. Following this premise, the Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows Program (Solid, 2007-2013) was developed at the same time as the TPMA program, and aimed to “(…) reinforce the implementation of the internal dimension of the Community policies on asylum, immigration and border controls (…)” (Comision de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006b, p. 15). This expression of solidarity posited that the national measures had to underpin the EU measures, aligning them with the EU migration management matrix, thus linking the internal and external dimensions of the bloc’s migration policy.

The Solid program grouped four financial instruments: the External Borders Fund (1 820 000 euros), the European Return Fund (676 000 euros), the European Refugee Fund (699 000 euros), and the Integration Fund (825 000 euros) (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006b). Each Member State designed its own national programs for each of these instruments.⁴⁰ Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium developed some projects involving Latin American countries, as will be detailed below. Spain stands out because it was a decisive promoter of these EU funds and the main recipient country between 2007 and 2008 (European Union Committee, 2008). In line with the core policies of the EU’s migration management matrix, attention will now turn to the External Borders Fund and the European Return Fund.

External Borders Fund

This fund was a core piece of the machinery on which the other funds depended (Tribunal de Cuentas Europeo, 2014). It was established around five priorities: (1) support for an integrated border system; (2) development of “national components” for the European External Border Surveillance System and a specific network for the EU’s southern maritime borders; (3) visa issuance and the fight against “illegal” immigration to intensify activities in consular services and “other services of the Member States in third countries”; (4) creation of IT systems in the field of borders and visas; and, (5) implementation of legal instruments in these fields (Tribunal de Cuentas Europeo, 2014, p. 9).

Based on these guidelines, the Member States drew up a multi-year program based on their needs, but subject to the Commission’s approval. Spain and Belgium worked on the third priority. Spain started in 2008 with the renovation of facilities and biometric systems in North African consulates and in 2009 reinforced consulates in Central and South America with the installation of new security systems in visa waiting rooms and improved biometric data capture (Subdirectorate General for Planning and Infrastructures Management and Material for Security, 2012). As anticipated, the measures implemented in Africa were later replicated in Latin America. Meanwhile, Belgium led the “Field Workers” project in 2013 and 2014 to improve consular activity and cooperation between the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and France in third countries, including Ecuador. Its objective was to deploy specialized workers in non-EU cities, such as Quito, to advise on the detection of false documents during visa procedures. In that Andean country, the results showed no forged identity documents (European Commission, 2016). Moreover, Italy raised its concern about South America as a source of “illegal migration flows by air” and monitored the arrivals from airports considered “at risk”, such as Lima, Quito, Caracas, Havana, Santo Domingo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Bogota (Ministry of Interior-Italy, n. d., p. 6). Similarly, a Spanish official report on this fund generated suspicions about this migration flow, by bringing together ideas that were present in the measures initiated by this budget item:

The migration flow from the Americas is perhaps the most numerous, although it is more difficult to quantify, as the entry into Spanish territory is apparently legal, posing as a tourist or by using false documentation (...). (Ministerio del Interior, 2008a, p. 3, emphasis added)

The “solidarity” implemented by the Solid program meant a greater commitment to the EU’s migration management matrix and, therefore, to the ideas and means of controlling migration. Through the technologization of controls, the security of EU borders was substantially increased, as well as the “remote control” of migration flows in European consulates in Latin America. All these issues nourish the securitization chain between member countries sought by the EU.

European Return Fund

This instrument prioritized voluntary return over forced return (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2007), an idea that was later reproduced in the so-called “Return Directive” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2008). Voluntary return was a vehicle for collaboration between public and private actors in the countries of destination and origin and migrants, involving them in the externalization strategies of migration control of the EU migration management matrix. The desired effectiveness of expelling a certain population was stated in the founding document of the fund: “In order to encourage voluntary return (...) it is appropriate to provide incentives (...), such as preferential treatment (...). This type (...) is in the interest of both a dignified return of such persons and of the authorities in terms of cost-effectiveness” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2007, point 22). The following budget item echoed the same arguments in 2014.

The fund supported four priorities in what it called “return management”: (1) a strategic approach by Member States; (2) cooperation among Member States; (3) innovative national and international tools; (4) community regulations and best practices (European Commission, 2007). The so-called “return management” needed to engage the countries of origin of migration in the migration management of destination countries, so that they would collaborate with the reintegration of their citizens and with the acceptance of migrants from other third countries (in the case of expulsions) within their territory.

With this funding, Portugal, Spain, and Italy assigned projects to Latin American migration. Regarding the “strategic approach”, these countries intended to consolidate the “assisted voluntary return” programs as a stable mechanism to encourage a certain profile of migrants to return. For example, the following programs implemented by the IOM bear witness to this. In Portugal, between 2009 and 2015 this EU fund sustained the Programa Apoio ao Retorno Voluntário e à Reintegração (ARVoRe) aimed at the return and reintegration of “vulnerable migrants”. As part of its activities, meetings were organized to promote the program with 350 organizations and entities in Brazil (European Commission, 2016). Also in Spain, two voluntary return programs were co-financed, one for vulnerable non-EU citizens in an irregular administrative situation, asylum seekers, or with international protection, and another for productive voluntary return for migrants in a regular or irregular situation (Parella & Petroff, 2014). The latter offered training for self-employment and the opening economic activities; in addition, it paid, between 2013 and 2015, for the return of migrants from Honduras, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Paraguay (European Commission, 2016). Among the “vulnerable” migrants to provide with accompaniment as potential returnees, a Spanish document mentioned those with health problems, disabilities, the elderly, and pregnant women (Ministerio del Interior, 2008b). In Italy, this item contributed, between 2014 and 2015, to the REMPLOY III project, aimed exclusively at irregular migrants without employment who wanted to return to set up a micro-enterprise, thus achieving the return of people from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru (European Commission, 2016). However, all these projects turned into far-reaching migration control directed to a profile of unwanted immigrant (“vulnerable” or “irregular”), who was offered assistance to resettle in the country of origin and to avoid temptation to return.

Regarding forced return, for example, Spain partly used this fund to carry out the expulsion of migrants from Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador, making Latin America the second most important region after Africa in the first years of Solid (Ministerio del Interior, 2009). The logistics costs, which included the internment of the migrant, two police escorts and travel expenses, explained the EU’s preference for voluntary return for cases that fell into both categories of return (as administratively irregular foreigners). According to data from the European Parliament’s Research Service, a forced return amounts to 3 414 euros compared to 560 euros for a voluntary return (CE, 2021). In 2002, the Green Paper─a strategic document on the return of “illegal” residents in the EU─stressed that “as far as possible, for obvious humanitarian reasons, priority should be given to voluntary return. Moreover (...) it requires less administrative effort than forced return” (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2002a, p. 8).

As the EU documents show, this framework of understanding continued from the Solid program to the subsequent Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund (AMIF): “from the point of view of policy action, voluntary and forced return are interrelated and have a mutually reinforcing effect” (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2007, point 23; 2014, point 28). With these initiatives, voluntary and forced return present since the TPMA would become a powerful focus of interest for the EU migration management projects, especially from the Solid and AMIF programs, as specified below.

AMIF and ISF (2014-2020)⁴¹

Continuing with “solidarity” as a guide for EU action, two funds were outlined for the 2014-2020 period in which migration management was involved: the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF). According to Den Hertog (2016), this division was due to the bidding that took place between the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) and the Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) to establish priorities within the Commission during the TPMA. As soon as the AMIF started, the EU reacted to the population flows from Syria, by defining the European Agenda on Migration in 2015. This set out the EU’s migration priorities in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, enhancing external border controls and strengthening mechanisms that were already part of its migration management matrix, such as collaboration with third countries on return, readmission of “irregular” migrants, and the fight against migrant smuggling.

The AMIF boosted the efficient management of asylum and immigration flows. The fund was intended to “increase efficiency” by sharing responsibility between member states and third countries (Parlamento Europeo & Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2014, point 7). The “shared responsibilities” were distributed with countries of migratory origin and demarcated EU spaces of interference in other territories. Its priorities were asylum, legal migration, return strategies to fight illegal immigration, and sharing responsibilities among Member States. The AMIF continued the path of the Solid program, assigning importance to both voluntary and forced return. As one document stated, irregular migrants were more likely to accept voluntary return packages if they knew their alternative was removal (European Commission, 2017).

In the seven years of the AMIF, at the EU level, 118 133 migrants were assisted with reintegration at origin, almost 26 000 people received training on return-related issues, more than 159 000 were assisted to return voluntarily, 117 296 were subject to forced return, and 30 096 return operations were monitored (European Union, 2020). As for Latin America and the Caribbean, 35 980 returns from the EU took place between 2014 and 2020, a period in which forced returns prevailed over voluntary returns (see Table 1). These figures indicate a lower adherence of migrants to voluntary return and greater control over their stay exercised by Member States. Although not all of these returns were enforced through the AMIF, the evidence gives an overview of the interest of the EU countries towards migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, both within and outside the Community funds for migration management. The strategy recently described by the EU for the Latin American and Caribbean region is along the same lines:

The EU should seek to deepen dialogue and cooperation on migration and mobility between the two regions, in particular to prevent irregular migration and trafficking in human beings, increase return and readmission, and strengthen border management, document security, integration of migrants into labor markets and societies, and protection of people in need. (CE, 2019, p. 11)

Table 1. Voluntary and forced returns from the EU of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean (2014-2020)
Total returns LAC	35 980	100%
Voluntary returns LAC	16 725	46%
Forced returns LAC	19 255	54%
Note: data available for 25 EU countries (Eurostat: migr_eirt_vol). Source: created by the author based on official Eurostat data

One of the joint initiatives co-financed by the AMIF was the European Return and Reintegration Network (ERRIN), which brought together 16 Schengen countries, the EC, and Frontex to assist the return and reintegration of migrants in 40 countries. With assistance from the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), between 2016 and 2019, return assistance was provided to migrants from Argentina, Paraguay, Honduras, and Brazil.⁴² At the state level, Spain, for example, carried out voluntary returns to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela (Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones, n. d.). The work of the IOM and different NGOs active in Latin America mediated these voluntary returns. De facto, such intermediary actors made the path to return effective, becoming facilitators of EU and Spanish migration control policies.

Lastly, the second instrument─the ISF─was divided into two lines: one dedicated to borders and visas and the other to the police. The ISF served to armor technologically the border controls of the Member States and the EU and to provide training for consular and police personnel. Its instruments paid practically no direct attention to the Latin American region; they concentrated on Africa in line with EU policy. This was repeated in Spain, even when Latin America was mentioned among the areas of “migratory pressure” and origin of “illegal” immigration (Subdirección General de Planificación y Gestión de Infraestructuras y Medios para la Seguridad, n. d.). There was only a record of police cooperation of the Spanish Ministry of Interior to train police and foreign officials from Latin America, Africa, and other European countries on various topics such as human trafficking (Ministerio del Interior, 2017).

In summary, although there has been a decrease in EU attention to the region in recent years, especially after 2015, the extension of EU migration control to Latin America and the Caribbean reflects its power as an actor to reconfigure borders and operate beyond its territorial limits. The EU’s migration management matrix served as a guide in the strategy of externalizing control to Latin America and the Caribbean. During 2001 and 2020, the second axis of the matrix, dedicated to the “fight against illegal migration”, played a leading role in EU migration management projects in this region. A relevant fact is that, within the categories included in the EU migration management projects, return played a leading role in the EU migration policy agenda toward Latin America and the Caribbean and was concentrated to a greater extent in the Solid and AMIF programs.

Conclusions

Migration management as an idea has gradually established itself as the core of EU migration policy. From this policy, milestones of the EU’s “coordinative discourse” (Schmidt, 2008) have emerged to address the control of non-EU migration flows. The end of the Cold War legitimized the institutional representation of non-EU migrations as a problem to be solved. In 1994, the EU adopted migration management as a programmatic idea until it became, in Tampere, its matrix for migration control and made its components functional to the logic of the communitarian security. The EU’s migration management matrix served as a guide in the strategy of externalizing control toward Latin America and the Caribbean. The policies of external border surveillance, return, and readmission, and the link between development and migration control, among others, characterize the EU’s migration management. The use of EU external action (and state foreign policy) toward third countries to disseminate the know-how of EU migration management is another characteristic of this matrix. This is empirically supported by the B7, Aeneas, TPMA, Solid, AMIF and ISF projects, implemented between 2001 and 2020 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The EU shifted from the inclusion of the Dominican Republic and Ecuador in the B7 migration management projects to involving Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, and El Salvador in Aeneas and including directly 18 countries in the region, and indirectly Venezuela in the TPMA. Judging by the number of initiatives, Colombia, Ecuador and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, were priority countries for the TPMA. Ecuador stands out as a notable case because it was the only country reached by most of the funds mentioned: B7, Aeneas, TPMA, Solid, and AMIF. Of the EU countries, Spain stands out for its involvement in numerous migration management projects. One should be borne in mind that, at least since 2008, Latin America and the Caribbean represent the number one source of extra-EU migration flows to Spain (Instituto Nacional de Estadística [INE], 2022), which is the fifth country of destination of immigration to Europe (IOM, 2021).

In the EU migration management projects in this region between 2001 and 2020, there was a leading role for the second axis of the matrix dedicated to the “fight against illegal migration”. A notable fact is that, within the categories included in the EU migration management projects, return played a key role in the political agenda on migration to Latin America and the Caribbean: it started with the TPMA fund and was concentrated to a greater extent in the Solid and AMIF programs. Under Solid, return programs impacted migrants from Brazil, Honduras, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. In contrast, AMIF projects returned migrants from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The externalization of the components of the EU migration management matrix in this region provides a dimension of the expansion of EU ideas that make borders malleable through policies and practices. EU strategies discursively shifted from “assistance” to third countries, as proposed in the Aeneas Program, to “support” as of 2006, which aimed to have an impact from within rather than from outside. The projects in Latin America and the Caribbean have shown attempts to implement migration control even among third countries by making the EU’s “remote control” operational in situ, but indirectly.

Since the TPMA, the EU has shown a greater interest in disseminating knowledge related to its migration management matrix through financing initiatives involving capacity building; in other words, making the knowledge regime a constituent part of the EU border regime. It was sought that the countries of destination, transit, and origin of migration, various institutions, international organizations, NGOs, and even the migrants themselves, internalize the contents of migration management and thus become links in the EU migration control chain. One should noted that this did not imply a top-down direction of the EU policy ideas about migration management. Rather, a horizontal mechanism─such as capacity building─was necessary so that the various Latin American and Caribbean actors could become familiar with the EU vision on how to deal with migration. In particular, the familiarization developed through courses, workshops, and training, aimed at public or private actors with an impact on public policies. In this sense, money operates as one more tool in the bordering process (Molinari, 2021), just as money and time can be considered as investments made by the EU to externalize its migration management in non-EU regions.

The Solid Funds show that the EU is adding a “solidarity” strategy among the Member States to the “partnership” strategy with third countries. The aim of the EU migration control chain was to generate “shared responsibilities” among all the actors. This appeal to commonality was related to, first, the control approach that had to be internalized to be effective and, second, to the border areas of EU interest. In Latin America, the “remote control” of migration flows was increased by technologizing controls in European consulates. All these factors strengthened the securitization chain sought by the EU. In 2015, barely a year after the AMIF and ISF funds were initiated, the EU’s attention turned to the Mediterranean region due to arrivals from Syria. In that process, the focus on Latin America temporarily decreased, but several active mechanisms still prevailed, such as forced and voluntary return─in that order─from the EU. Indicative of this is that the EC (CE, 2019) recently re-emphasized the need to increase returns and further technologize migration controls as part of its strategy toward the region.

The extension of EU migration control toward Latin America and the Caribbean in the course of a few years demonstrates the power of the EU to reconfigure borders and operate beyond their limits. This regional integration scheme proved to have a wide margin within the migratory sphere to reconstruct borders and influence geopolitical spaces both internally and externally. All this contributed to establishing the EU as a major player in the international dynamics of cooperative migration control.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the fruitful comments of my colleagues from the Study Group on “Migration, Policies, and Resistances” (MiPRes- IIGG-UBA) to a previous version of this paper presented during an internal seminar in 2021.

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Notes

¹ Subsequently, reference was made to the need for a “global migration strategy” (Consejo de la Unión Europea, 1998, point 34; Consejo Europeo, 1999b), to be followed by the “global approach to migration” (2005), which was later taken up by the “European Pact on Immigration and Asylum” (2008) and the European Agenda on Migration (2015).

² The central features of this concept were already found in Ghosh’s earlier work in 1992 (Santi Pereyra, 2021). Attending to the space of enunciation and circulation of discourses, the then President of the European Commission (1985-1994), Jacques Delors, was one of the 28 members of the Commission on Global Governance (1992-1994), in which Ghosh systematized his migration management proposal. This example shows the leading role of institutions in the “marketplace of ideas” and in their manufacture and dissemination as policy paradigms or specialized knowledge (Garcé, 2015, p. 207).

³ It may occur recurrently in advance and outside the binding Community framework, as in the case of the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (Oelgemöller, 2011), or in the regular meetings of ministers of the interior of partner countries.

⁴ The CFSP does not deal with migration and asylum but since 2015 it has carried out operations and missions in those areas in African countries under the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) (Bendiek & Bossong, 2019). It continues to operate inter-governmentally in an increasingly supranational EU (Johansen, 2020).

⁵ Developed in 2003 by the Italian NGO Alisei and the Ecuadorian NGO FEPP.

⁶ It is usually channeled through courses, trainings, workshops, coaching, etcetera, aimed at public or private actors with an impact on public policies.

⁷ The program, scheduled to run until 2008, was reduced to adjust to the conclusion of the 2006 EU financial framework (Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas, 2006a). As a result, its budget was reduced from 250 million to 120 million euros.

⁸ See Consejo de la Unión Europea, 2006.

⁹ “Model for the optimization of immigrant remittances: Trans-national network actions to improve remittance use”, implemented between 2006 and 2008 by the Unión de Cooperativas Madrileñas de Trabajo Asociado. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 942 152 euros.

¹⁰ “Colombian-Ecuadorian Migration Monitoring Service. Establishing a Colombo Ecuadorian Observatory of International Migration and strengthen relevant policies, and preventive actions concerning migration”, implemented between 2006 and 2009 by Fundación Esperanza and Alisei. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 2 430 587 euros.

¹¹ “Prevention of illegal migration and abuses of asylum system from Colombia”, requested by the Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR) and implemented between 2007 and 2009 by public and civil society organizations in Valle del Cauca. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 636 066 euros.

¹² “Temporary and Circular Labour Migration (TCLM) between Colombia and Spain: a model for consolidation and replication”, implemented between 2006 and 2008 by the IOM, Fundación Agricultores Solidarios (FAS) and Unió de Pagesos. The EC funded almost 80% of the total budget of 625 046 euros.

¹³ “Securing travel documents, improving border management and sustaining return and reintegration in Bolivia”, requested by the IOM and implemented in government entities between 2008 and 2009. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 1 066 744 euros.

¹⁴ “Human Development and Migration”, requested by the United Nations Development Program and implemented by Salvadoran public and civil society organizations between 2007 and 2010. The EC funded almost 80% of the total budget of 1 439 054 euros.

¹⁵ Data for projects funded in 2011 are partially available.

¹⁶ “Development of strategies for local development and prevention of uncontrolled migration to Spain in the cities of Pereira, Cali and Bogota D.C., Colombia”, implemented between 2009-2011 by America, España, Solidaridad y Cooperación. The EC funded 78% of the total budget of 700 000 euros.

¹⁷ “Strengthening of institutional capacities for identification and response in cases of trafficking in persons between Colombia regions with high rates of migration to destinations in Central America and Europe”, implemented between 2014-2017 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 960 000 euros.

¹⁸ “Climate change and displacement: building an evidence base and equipping States with tools and guidance for action”, implemented between 2013 and 2015 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 2 000 000 euros.

¹⁹ “Strengthening the capacity of Andean countries, specifically Ecuador and Colombia, in the area of migration and asylum”, implemented between 2013 and 2016 by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ, German: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbei). The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 2 000 000 euros.

²⁰ From the Andean Community of Nations and the South American Conference on Migration.

²¹ “Creation of incubators of knowledge diasporas for Latin America (Cidesal)”, implemented between 2009 and 2012 by the Institute of Research for Development. The EC funded 70% of the total cost of 996 600 euros.

²² “Capacity building to prevent and combat trafficking in human beings”, implemented between 2009 and 2011 by the IOM. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 1 003 109 euros.

²³ “Promotion of international protection for Colombian refugees in Ecuador”, implemented between 2013 and 2015 by UNHCR. The EC funded about 71% of the budget, equivalent to 2 000 000 euros.

²⁴ “Protection of the rights of children and adolescents and strengthening of child protection systems in conditions of human mobility in Ecuador”, implemented between 2014 and 2016 by Save the Children. The EC funded almost 80% of the budget, equivalent to 554 647 euros.

²⁵ “Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI)”, implemented between 2008 and 2011 by the IOM, UNHCR, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The EC funded its total budget of 15 000 000 euros.

²⁶ “Improved local management of flows of migrant domestic workers from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to the EU, primarily Spain,” implemented between 2009-2012 by Oxfam. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 1 751 087 euros.

²⁷ “Andean Migration Service-SAMI”, implemented between 2011-2013 by Fundación Esperanza. The EC funded almost 80% of the budget, equivalent to 2 000 000 euros.

²⁸ “Peru and Beyond: Promoting migrants’ rights and strengthening the fight against illegal trafficking of migrants from Peru to the EU”, implemented between 2011-2014 by Progettomondo Movimento Laici America Latina. The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 753 708 euros.

²⁹ “Promoting and protecting women migrant workers labour and human rights: engaging with international, national human rights mechanisms to enhance accountability”, implemented between 2014-2017 by UN Women. The EC funded 80% of the budget equivalent to 1 733 847 euros.

³⁰ “Protection and promotion of the human rights of migrants in transit, from local management and through the coordination of public human rights agencies and civil society organizations”, implemented between 2013 and 2015 by the Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal (Mexico). The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 944 935 euros.

³¹ “Supporting regional integration through improved migration management in Central America”, implemented between 2009 and 2011 by the IOM. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 1 315 920 euros.

³² “Program for the Prevention of Irregular Migration in Mesoamerica”, implemented between 2015 and 2018 by the Organization of American States (OAS). The EC funded almost 76% of the budget, equivalent to 2 367 215 euros.

³³ “Promotion of gender-sensitive labor migration policies in Costa Rica, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama and Haiti-Dominican Republic”, implemented between 2011 and 2014 by the ILO. The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 1 993 777 euros.

³⁴ “Strengthening and promotion of existing ties between Haitian migration and the development of its host countries”, implemented between 2011 and 2014 by the Center for Training and Social and Agricultural Action. The EC funded 80% of the budget, equivalent to 1 726 264 euros.

³⁵ “Promoting transnational partnerships: preventing and responding to trafficking in human beings from Brazil to EU member States”, implemented between 2009 and 2011 by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development. The EC funded 80% of the total budget of 628 600 euros.

³⁶ “‘Cross-border Migration’: strengthening the capacity of the Federal Government of Brazil to manage new migration flows”, implemented between 2013-2016 by the International Center for Migration Policy Development. The EC funded 75% of the budget, equivalent to 1 425 238 euros.

³⁷ “Itineris: Protecting migrants’ rights from exploitation, from Brazil to the European Union”, implemented between 2011-2013 by the International Center for Migration Policy Development. The EC funded about 79% of the total budget of 1 274 949 euros.

³⁸ “Strengthening the dialogue and cooperation between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to establish management models on migration and development policies”, implemented between 2011-2014 by the IOM.

³⁹ “Migration of health professionals between Latin America and Europe: analysis and generation of opportunities for shared development” and “Migration of health professionals. Opportunity for shared development”. The EC funded about 73% of the budget, equivalent to 871 388 euros, of the first (2009-2011), and about 77% of the budget, equivalent to 1 063 453 euros, of the second (2013-2016), both implemented by the Andalusian School of Public Health.

⁴⁰ This makes it difficult to trace projects because they are not linked in a common database.

⁴¹ This makes project tracking difficult because they are not linked in a common database.

⁴² The latter is still the focus of the program. See https://returnnetwork.eu/2019/09/06/flexibility-active-listening-and-mutual-trust-are-key-to-success/

Silvana Santi
Argentinian. PhD in Political Science (Universidad de Belgrano, Argentina). Master in International Relations (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina). Degree in Journalism (Universidad de Belgrano, Argentina). Member of the Study Group on “Migration, Policies, and Resistance” (IIGG-UBA) and the Working Group on “South-South Migration” (Clacso). Lines of research: migration policies; migration and regional integration; and political agenda on migration between Latin America and Europe. Recent publication: Santi, S. (2020). ¿Qué es la migración “ordenada”? Hacia el multilateralismo asimétrico como motor de las políticas de control migratorio global. Colombia Internacional, (104), 3-32. https://doi. org/10.7440/colombiaint104.2020.01

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 Internacional.